Young Eucalyptus trees have leaves that are rounded and are arranged opposite to one another. However, when mature the leaves of a Eucalyptus are lance-like and are arranged in an alternating fashion. This to me is quite unusual.
In areas where they are introduced, they also become quite invasive by practicing something called alelopathy, whereby they introduce toxins into the soil to prevent competing tree species from taking hold.
While I'm at it, Eucalyptus trees have very very dense wood which means the wood burns very hot. This makes it even worse for forest fires where Eucalyptus trees dominate.
(I knew my botany studies would come in handy someday. I just never knew when!)
Those things are tough, and they grow really fast in the right climate.
had*
@dang, I wish we had more time to edit our posts.
I live in South Australia and I was surprised to hear about all Eucalypts having 'leaf dimorphism' (that is what I searched for, then learned that it's usually known as 'heteroblasty') I have of course seen it many times in-the-wild, but it is not universal to all Eucalypts.
Banksia, Grevillea and Hakea are also very beautiful Australian native trees/shrubs imo, but they are a different group: Proteaceae. And there's a fascinating fruiting small tree called 'Quandong' that's in the Sandalwood family (still seems bit related to eucalypts or maybe Wattle (Acacia) when looking at it in real life though).
It grew 40m in ~10 years and spanned ~200-300m^2
See E. grandis, E. tetraptera, E. chartaboma, E. deglupta, E. pulverulenta for examples of diversity
Some are incredibly tall with really smooth skin, some are basically bushes, some have really messy papery bark; some even have rainbow bark! Some have really long leaves while some have extremely short tightly wound round leaves
https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2021/05/02/theres-no-such-th...
A better comparison is "Fliyers", that include most insects, most birds, bats, pterodactyls and perhaps a few gliding and kitting animals. It evolveded and disappeared a few times.
You'd think that now that we have LLMs, the actual in-your-face empirical evidence of a system that can effectively navigate the complexities of the real world without being fed, or internally developing, rigid ontologies, that people would finally get the memo - but alas.
So Monocots don't have rings. Anything else that is a tree in a tropical forest has rings. It does not matter where they grow. The rings are smaller in slow growing species, and are different structurally in conifers, but this is all.
> Recent 2024 analysis confirmed it is at least 16,000 years old, with possibilities ranging up to 80,000 years, making it one of the oldest living organisms.
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2025/08/ancient-yew-tr...
All a matter of having an open and curious mind, I suppose.
Two examples right from downtown São Paulo,
A wikipedia dive session is likely to get more and more specific into trees (attacked by twees!); an encyclopedia flip session is more likely to go across a wide variety of subjects.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metasequoia_glyptostroboides
I started 2 sprouts I bought by mail order, after one growing season they were nearly 3 feet tall. I got them mail order from Jonsteen Nursery, they have been specializing in various redwood saplings for many years. https://sequoiatrees.com/
It makes sense now that the species was discovered in the 40s
https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2017/12/12/the-travel...
[0]: https://imgur.com/gallery/what-kind-of-plant-is-this-grew-le...
A beautiful living thing which my perception of its rythmic swing has lived on with me for decades. Trees are lovely.
everyone should have a copy of Identifying Wood on their metal bookshelf
