Eucalyptus tetraptera

Eucalyptus tetraptera is a species native to the southwest of Australia, which loves heat and sun. A small-sized bush with a well-spreading habit, it carries large evergreen leaves of a beautiful slightly varnished green. Its flowering of fuchsia pink leaning towards red is decorative but surpassed by the beauty of the fruits that succeed it. These have a characteristic geometric shape, display a superb, very attractive red colour and persist for a long time on the plant. This small ornamental bush grows well in sandy soil, or sandy-loamy, non-limestone, in sunny exposure, in areas where frost is brief and not very intense.

This bush is a member of the large botanical family of Myrtaceae, which includes about 130 genera distributed in the tropical and warm temperate zones of the globe. The single genus Eucalyptus includes more than 800 species, almost all native to Australia. The Eucalyptus tetraptera comes from an area that extends approximately 600 km (372.8 mi) long in the southwest of Australia. It grows on the coast and at low altitudes, in sandy plains mixed with granite outcrops. It benefits from sunny conditions with hot summers and moderately dry winters.
This Eucalyptus is qualified as Mallee, which has a bushy habit, or is divided into several trunks at ground level with a height less than 10 m (32 ft 10 in). This species generally measures 3 m (9 ft 10 in) in height, occasionally rising up to 5m (16 ft 5 in), but sometimes remaining prostrate when exposed to difficult living conditions. It adopts an open and flared, well-branched habit, often as wide as it is tall. The multiple trunks have a beautiful pale grey to silvery grey bark that falls off at the end of summer. Like some other species of the genus, it has an underground lignotuber, a kind of swelling rich in starch that allows the plant to restart following a fire, or destruction of the aerial part. The axillary buds located on the lignotuber then start to grow, generating several stems.
Another distinctive sign of this Eucalyptus is its foliage, with leaves among the thickest of all. The young ovate to elliptical leaves measure approximately 5 to 12 cm (2 to 4.7 in) long by 2.5 to 7 cm (1 to 2.8 in) wide. The adult foliage is characterised by surprisingly large leaves compared to the size of the bush, as they reach 9 to 20, even 28 cm (11 in) in length and 3 to 7.5 cm (1.2 to 3 in) in width. Longer than the juvenile ones, they are carried by petioles 2 to 4.5 cm (0.8 to 1.8 in) long, and arranged alternately. These tough leaves have a beautiful green colour with a varnished appearance, which is a double adaptation to semi-arid climates. They are evergreen and decorative year-round and constitute a beautiful setting for the dark pink, almost red, flowering at the end of spring and beginning of summer. The solitary axillary flowers have no petiole, and show a bouquet of slightly protruding stamens. The resulting fruits have a very geometric shape, with 4 prominently marked wings, which gives this species its vernacular name of square-fruited Mallee, or four-winged Mallee. These fruits measure up to 5.5 cm (2.2 in) long and as wide (wings included), of a bright red colour that, combined with their size, makes them highly visible and aesthetic for many months. They then gradually darken over time...
Highly ornamental, this small-sized Eucalyptus is well adapted to warm temperate climates, like those of the Mediterranean. Its frost resistance is quite low, around -5°C (23 °F).

Very original with its extremely decorative fruits, Eucalyptus tetraptera will be content with little, showing tolerance to the soil, which can be sandy, even poor, and water, tolerating dry conditions well. In a southern garden, you can associate it in a sunny bed with Arbutus unedo Rubra, a dwarf form of Strawberry Tree which combines numerous assets, from the evergreen dark green foliage, to pretty pink flowering, often cohabiting with the fruits first yellow, then red. Add to this an ornamental reddish bark and you have a beautiful ensemble with our little Eucalyptus. A mat of Senecio mandraliscae, a crassula-like ground cover whose foliage takes on incredible blue colours, will create a surprising contrast with these bushes.