Eucalyptus

Description:

The Eucalyptus trees in these fotos appear to be atypical of Eucalyptus trees. Everything I read says they are straight single stemmed trees. Those I see in the campo (countryside) are tall, straight, single stemmed and regularly harvested like those mauna Kunzah posted - https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/13.... These fotos were taken of a tree in one of Quito’s main parks and has limbs from the main stem beginning 4-5 meters above the ground. There are many such trees and the bark, leaves and smell are definitely Eucalyptus, but the stems are branched. It is probable that this is the Blue Gum (Eucalyptus globulus). It has been highly imported for use as "street trees" and in parks, and many fotos show similar trunks. The trunk of this large tree was 150 cm across and I estimated it’s height to be at least 25-30 meters. The bark appears to hang in shreds. This is because they grow a new layer of bark every year under the old, which in some species falls of in strips or chunks. The leaves are an off-green color, almost blue-green, and are long and narrow. The link to Wiki in the Reference Box gives excellent descriptions of the tree, bark, leaves and fruit if you are interested further.

Habitat:

As mentioned these particular fotos were taken in a park in central Quito, elevation 2850 masl. All but a few of the 700+ species are native only to Australia, however they have been introduced into many countries as a source of pulpwood among other uses.

Notes:

As with most introduced species, some have become invasive which impacts local ecosystems. Wildlife, especially bird species change. As Eucalyptus consume a huge amount of water (each tree sucking about 5-10 gallons [20 to 40 liters] of water out of the ground every day), there is a detrimental impact of a shortage of water for surrounding farms’ crops. Read about this in the lower link in the Reference Box.