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Any desert traveller that has driven through the
Great Victoria Desert area will testify to the sheer beauty of this majestic Eucalyptus tree that stands out from all other vegetation that grows in this desert environment.
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Eucalyptus gongylocarpa or Marble Gum has 2 alternative names, Desert Gum or Bara Gum and was know to the Aboriginal people as Para. One of the uses for the Marble Gum by the local Aboriginal people of the area was, on the trees that had straight trunks, to make Piti’s or Coolamons from the bark of the tree. There are many fine examples of trees whose bark has been removed for this purpose to be seen along sections of the
Anne Beadell Highway.
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The Marble Gum is a single trunked tree ranging in size from 10 – 20 metres tall with a broad shady crown. Often the tree will branch near the base with a gnarled or spreading appearance and has a smooth white and mottled bark with loose red brown flakes with usually lobed spinifex as an understory.
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Juvenile leaves are the opposite of the adult leaves, being without stalks, round to oval, with a white waxy covering, persistent but are gradually replaced by waxy or
grey – green elliptical adult leaves of 4 – 7cm long x 10 – 15mm wide and with a short stalk. After infrequent good rains, inconspicuous creamy white flowers in axillary clusters of 7 club shaped buds with long stalks will appear. The fruits are spherical, 6 – 10mm in diameter and resembling a marble, giving the popular common name, Marble Gum.
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Marble Gums are found in the deep wind blown sand on plains and low vegetated dunes, or in clayey soils in swales or interdune corridors of the south western corner of the Northern Territory and through the Great Victoria Desert areas in Western Australia and as far east as Vokes
Hill in South Australia.
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Any large single stemmed eucalypt tree found in the
Great Victoria Desert will be a Marble Gum, as the beauty of this distinctive species is unmistakable and unlikely to be confused with any other species in its natural environment.
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The first European to have seen this majestic tree in this desert area, but not collect any samples was the noted Explorer, Ernest Giles during his fourth expedition into the then unnamed and uncharted deserts of South and Western Australia. In the Queen Victoria Springs area in September 1875 the party was saved when they came across their first major
water supply in more than 300
miles. As this
water supply was the salvation of his party, Giles named the Desert that he had just crossed and the claypan in honour of Queen Victoria.
The first European to collect samples of this tree was Richard Helms, leader of the Elder Expedition, when he collected samples in early July 1891 at their
camp 17 of the Expedition, 40 kilometres south – west of Mt
Watson in the Birksgate Range on the desert’s northern fringe. At the time when the samples were collected, it was believed to be Eucalyptus eudesmioides and it was not until more field surveys were carried out that it was given its present name in 1936.