Eucalyptus Ficifolia - Red flowering Gum

[kcpoole]

Have repotted today into Akadama as the tree next it was infested with curl grubs and I had to chaeck this one too
What to do about the lumpy bit round the base?
I assume this is the Lignotuber, and is quite a bit larger than the trunk section underneath it. Can I carve it back, or should i / Can i layer it at this point to provide a wider base to start my nebari?

Ken

[FlyBri]

Gday KC!

Good to see you posting a lot of Oz Natives! (I hope to address as many of them as I can, strictly from a non-expert point of view of course)

My first observation would be that this does not appear to be E. ficifolia (now known as Corymbia ficifolia): the leaves of the Red Flowering Gum are much bigger than the ones on your tree, and I would expect them to be 50mm wide by 100mm long even on a tree as small as yours.

My second observation is that you do have a lignotuber present, as you suggested... I would not attempt to carve it: I have never tried to carve lignotubers, but the anecdotal evidence is that the success rate is so-so. At this early stage of development, I would advise planting it below (or just at) the surface of the soil (against everything the Koreshoffs ever taught) and keep the feeder roots well pruned. The other option is to layer just above it (as you also suggested), but I cannot guarantee that you will not end up with a lignotuber on your layered tree.

I'm interested in seeing the tree's progress in Akadama!

Thanks.

Fly.

[kcpoole]

Hmm intereting Fly about the name

I purchased it with a label on it from the Forestry commission Nursery at Castle Hill. I woud have thought they wuld have gotten it right, but who knows.

Do you know of any websites that have indentification info on Eucs?

Ken

[Steven]

Do you know of any websites that have indentification info on Eucs?

G'day Ken,

Check out EucaLink which is part of PlantNet.
Both sites are maintained and edited by staff of the National Herbarium of New South Wales which is part of the Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain Trust.

Good luck with the identification!
Steven

[kcpoole]

Do you know of any websites that have indentification info on Eucs?

G'day Ken,

Check out EucaLink which is part of PlantNet.
Both sites are maintained and edited by staff of the National Herbarium of New South Wales which is part of the Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain Trust.

Good luck with the identification!
Steven

cool thanks will see what I can find

[Pup]

Ken I have a Euc ( corymbia ) ficifolia. I agree with Fly the leaves on mine are much larger and are not as lanceolate.
The lignotuber has in my always been a no no to bury. I am open to any other method to prove it works.
As we are having very good rains here I will tomorrow try to get a picture.
This one of mine is just 9 months in work it has been in Akadama since I bought it and bare rooted it. The leaves have reduced in size due to constantly cutting the big ones back.
This is also a problem as I do not see that nine months is really enough time to pass on definitive information.
As is the case with quite a few of my trees they have been in work less than 5 years. So to give as definite this works or that works is not in my opinion a safe bet.
JMHO Pup

[Pup]

Ken I have a Euc ( corymbia ) ficifolia. I agree with Fly the leaves on mine are much larger and are not as lanceolate.
The lignotuber has in my always been a no no to bury. I am open to any other method to prove it works.
As we are having very good rains here I will tomorrow try to get a picture.
This one of mine is just 9 months in work it has been in Akadama since I bought it and bare rooted it. The leaves have reduced in size due to constantly cutting the big ones back.
This is also a problem as I do not see that nine months is really enough time to pass on definitive information.
As is the case with quite a few of my trees they have been in work less than 5 years. So to give as definite this works or that works is not in my opinion a safe bet.
JMHO Pup

P1070326.JPG

P1070327.JPG

[kcpoole]

thanks Pup
Nice mate

I see what you mean by the leaves being different, totally different shape and colour.

I will have to get my investigating hat on
Ken

[bodhidharma]

Good God i have one of them growing in my bonsai area and a large one at that.(in the ground of course) magnificent specimen. I would be very pleased to know what it is.

[Pup]

Good God i have one of them growing in my bonsai area and a large one at that.(in the ground of course) magnificent specimen. I would be very pleased to know what it is.

Which one mine is a red flowering gum Corymbia ficifolia ( formerly Eucalyptus )

[kcpoole]

Hey Bodi
Take some photos of it so we can have a look

[Kunzea]

Greetings to all who have been writing in the string.
Great to see the interest and experience with more eucs developing everywhere. I don't grow C ficifolia as it is frost tender.

The lignotuber is an interesting conundrum for bonsaiists. Years ago I read of the results from early triers that they had various carved and cut off the lignotuber, but to no avail. It just grew back, and the work didnt' produce anything better looking than what they started with.

Lignotubers form most readily when the growing conditions are not not ideal. So, starting with tube stock in a nursery, or from your own seedlings, that are placed into pots that restrict root growth, is to have a plant in less than ideal conditions and it produces lignotubers. Quite a few species of eucs will have lignotubers almost immediately after germinating, but these will 'disappear' if the tree starts to grow well. If conditions force it to grow slowly, then the lt s starts to grow in earnest - it might just need it some time soon if conditions get even worse!

If you accept that the lignotuber is part of the normal form of many eucalypts, then you can start to change your perceptions of what is beautiful and what is not. I've gone looking at old eucs and have found those that have large swollen bases that came from lignotubers and are now more than 1.5 m across. The tree looks great. I've a E. polyanthemos with a very similar lt. As the tree has aged, the lt and trunk have melded together well, with the lt providing a pleasingly broadened base for the trunk.

I've grown E. pauciflora (snow gum) from seed. It produced two lt s just above the cotyledons and separated by about 10 mm. Not too nice to look at. I've left the lt alone, and now, nearly 20 years later, the lt s have grown together to form a beautifully smooth, almost voluptuously rounded, broad base to my tree. On E. crucis (book-leaved mallee), the lt is about 1/4 wider than the trunk on either side, but with the same rough, though delicate bark. As the trunk has naturally twisted and turned, the lt swellings just add to the great character of the tree.

With E. meliodora (yellow box), the lt isn't quite so 'beautiful' to my eyes. One tree I got from an old friend, still has the look of a potato with trunks rising from it. Much character, but a bit more challenging to me. A hybrid from a street tree of E. crebra also has a pronounced lt, but in this case, it is providing a good look-alike for a mallee. The original single trunk, with not much lt to speak of, died when I did a heavy prune one year. It tried valiantly to shoot new branches from the trunk in several cylces of try and die. Eventually the trunk did die, but the lt then produced some 50 new stems! I let these grow for year and many of them died off. I then did a little thinning out of the weakest. Eventually the number of stems was down to 5 great looking ones. The horticultural challenges then set in with earnest. When I pruned the tops, being careful to leave a few green leaves so as not to repeat the previous experience, I found that all five trunks would then not produce new shoots - say 4 would and one wouldn't. then next year the 'late' one produced new leaves while another trunk didn't. Eventually two trunks just died out and I have three, but still the problem of not all trunks shooting each year. This story isn't finished yet, so tune back in for this one in a few more years. Oh, this hybrid had a sibling from the same gum nut. It is totally unlike its sib. It too has a lignotuber, but it is relatively narrow and long, rather than short and stout. No problems there, but the leaves are strange - the early one each spring are small but look ok, but then later ones become miniscule and often contorted. It seems that the only 'cure' is to super feed the tree through out the growing season and then the new growth doesn't contort. The leaves are always small (say 40mm x 3-4 mm). The shape of the trunk is fascinating and most unconventional. I threatened to sell it off, but I've grown to love the plant too much now.

Must stop or you won't read anymore!
Kunzea

[Pup]

G,day Kunzea.
I found this fasinating reading. I have in the past tried the carving on what was a nice tree except for the LT. It has ufortunately gone to the big garden.
So after that I stuck with the two I have.
One the red flowering bought stock to try. The other cittriodora which I have a small group of and a Shohin. All of the are self sown seeds from the trees at the school and the block next door.
I have let these grow freely , but they have always been in pots. I do feed regulary once per fortnight, with Phostrogen one feed and MiracalGro for azaleas and camellias next. No LT has shown on any of these but it has only been 4 years so we will have to wait and see. Pup

[kcpoole]

Thanks Kunzea
Some things to ponder and this sort of info we really need to get out there and known

Ken

[FlyBri]

Gday Ken, Pup and Kunzea!

Mr Kunzea: it is apparent from reading your writings here and elsewhere that you have come to accept the lignotuber, and maybe even embrace it... Goodonya! I sincerely wish that I could look at a gnarly lump of inverse taper in a positive light, but I am yet young at the practice of Bonsai.

Thanks for the lignotuber information you have provided: lots of stuff that many of us may not have already known. Who knew that a lignotuber was largely the result of a difficult growing environment?

* * *

...At this early stage of development, I would advise planting it below (or just at) the surface of the soil (against everything the Koreshoffs ever taught) and keep the feeder roots well pruned. The other option is to layer just above it (as you also suggested)...

...The lignotuber has in my always been a no no to bury. I am open to any other method to prove it works...

Mr Pup: please allow me to clarify my position regarding the burying of this particular lignotuber:

I know that it's a 'no-no', but in reading and re-reading the Koreshoffs' native book, it was never made clear what were the ages and origins of the Eucs they had worked with when they came to the conclusion that a lignotuber should only ever be moved upwards in the soil. I imagine that a well developed lignotuber from the wild might object to being stuck deeper into a mucky potting mix, but a young nursery-grown tree should be a lot more flexible, especially when placed into a well-drained Bonsai substrate.

The Koreshoffs state that the lignotuber is "made up of undifferentiated cells, which, depending on the conditions surrounding a particular part of the tuber, have the ability to either produce branches or roots." Following this line of thought, if we were to place the tuber into a situation in which it might grow roots (IE: in contact with the soil) then it should grow roots. (I know that this is rather circular logic, but I'm trying to work my way around to making a point.)

Finally, if Ken was to attempt a layer anywhere near the lignotuber (I would not suggest layering directly at the site of the tuber), the process would almost certainly require that the LT be buried beneath the layering medium. I theory, that would kill the tree. (This is another situation I'd like to address at length, but I'll do so in another thread.)

As Mr Kunzea states, a Euc can - over time - grow into its lignotuber, but if I were Ken I'd be looking at a quicker solution. Bearing in mind the things I've mentioned above, my first choice of action would be to bury the tuber deeper, in the hopes of utilizing the swelling as the beginnings of a root flare (see attached pic). As suggested, I believe the tree to be young enough to be tolerant of the change.

KCPoole_Lignotuber.jpg

However Ken, if you wish to take the 'safe' route, you should remove any branches/buds from the tuber, as they will only cause it to swell further.

Please note that much of my case is speculation (based in part on observations I've made while working with Eucs). None of the theories espoused here have any hard data to back them up (yet... ). This discussion has prompted me to think long and hard about the nature of lignotubers, and I've now got a few experiments up my sleeve...

I hope this makes some sense.

Thanks all!

Fly.