Dear Satish Ji Here some info......
Long ago in simpler times there was s alarge genus of about 700 species called Eucalyptus and a very small genus (with 7 species) called Angophora and together they were called gum trees by Australians because they looked very similar. The reason they were different is that they differed in two characters- unlike all the Eucalyptus species (whose flower buds are initially covered by a little cap), the buds of Angophora are naked and uncapped. That’s pretty fundamental esp if you remember that the name ‘eu-calyptus’ means ‘well-covered’ pointedly refer to the bud caps. What’s more, unlike Eucalyptus, the flowers of Angophora have petals, tiny little ones, but petals nevertheless- and it wasn’t easy to avoid these differences. This was the situation till 1995, when 2 australian botanists called Hill and Johnson published a paper formally recognizing a new genus called Corymbia, comprising 113 species that had been scooped out from genus Eucalyptus. The genus Eucalyptus had been subdivided into 7to 12 sub-generic groups to manage its sprawling empire of almost 700 species and Corymbia was one of them. Hill and Johnson’s paper argued that all the species in the sub-group Corymbia differed enough from the rest of the species in Eucalyptus genus to merit becoming a genus on their own. Many scientists resisted the change and continued to use the old name for Corymbia implicitly disagreeing from Hill and Johnson’s proposition. At the same time, studies in DNA sequencing were beginning to show that the Corymbia were in fact more closely related to Angophora than to Eucalyptus. Yet resistance to the name change continued. One of the fear was that by the same logic, taxonomists might seek to promote all the separate subgenera of Eucalyptus into new genera. What probably rankled most of all was that – unlike the separation of Eucalyptus from Angophora, which was based on easily visible differences – the differences between Eucalyptus and Corymbia are at a subtle level, not easily recognized. There are no obvious characters of bark bud or foliage to mark the separation. Acceptance of the new genus will be a long, slow process but for the moment, whatever genus one uses – Eucalytus citriodora or Corymbia cotriodora – the only tree that will be in reference is the lemon scented gum. Alok On Jul 18, 11:00 pm, Satish Phadke <[email protected]> wrote: > Looks like a Eucalyptus species..... > > > > > > > > On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:35 AM, Balkar Arya <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dear All > > > Corymbia citriodora from IARI regional Station Karnal > > very large trees about 50 years old as told by the persons working there > > leaves scented with lemonoid fragrance > > -- > > Regards > > > Dr Balkar Singh > > Head, Deptt. of Botany and Biotechnology > > Arya P G College, Panipat > > Haryana-132103 > > 09416262964
