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Myrtaceae family

Forest Redgum Eucalyptus tereticornis

Early-season nectar — Flowers in a late-winter / early-spring window when few other plants in our catalog bloom — valuable early forage for pollinators (relative to our catalog's bloom coverage).

Forest Redgum is an introduced perennial tree, found in Hawaii and the lower 48 states. It grows to 90 ft and blooms Jan – Aug.

More about this plant

Eucalyptus tereticornis, commonly known as forest red gum, blue gum or red irongum, is a species of tree that is native to eastern Australia and southern New Guinea. It has smooth bark, lance-shaped to curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven, nine or eleven, white flowers and hemispherical fruit. Wikipedia →

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

Forest Redgum is flagged invasive in the U.S. These natives fill a similar niche — same growth habit, bloom season, height, and region — so you keep the look and feed local wildlife instead of spreading a problem.

Sweet Acacia
Native
Sweet Acacia
Vachellia farnesiana
●●●●○
Island Live Oak
Native
Island Live Oak
Quercus tomentella
●●●●●
American Burnweed
Native
American Burnweed
Erechtites hieraciifolius
●○○○○
Santa Barbara Ceanothus
Native
Santa Barbara Ceanothus
Ceanothus impressus
●●●○○
Matched on growth habit · bloom months · mature height · shared U.S. range (USDA + GBIF) — a starting point, not a prescription.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 11 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Height
90 ft
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Evergreen broadleaf
In the garden
Canopy layer — Sits in the canopy of a layered food forest or polyculture. Its deep roots also work the lower soil profile.Open guide →
derived roles
The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Bloom
Bloom (the flower's colour)
Bloom · Jan – Aug — 44 obs · Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts Documented caterpillar host
Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Wildlife & visitors 6 birds

Open records of who else uses Forest Redgum — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (2) Methods & honest limits
Leaf build Direct fact

We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.

Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.
Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (20) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — GloBI
[12] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[13] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[14] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[15] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[16] Rooting depth — Fan et al. 2017 (Dryad, CC0)
[19] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[20] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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