Blood in the Park

You can’t hear yourself think at Peacehaven at the moment. The lorikeets, all three resident species, are screaming their heads off in the tall timbers. It’s enough to make your blood boil, or have their blood on your hands.

Red Bloodwood, Corymbia gummifera

However that’s not the kind of blood I’m really referring to but the Red Bloodwoods which are flowering profusely at the moment. Corymbia gummifera (once known as Eucalyptus gummifera) make up part of Peacehaven’s mature tree collection and with their summer blossom are causing hysteria in the lorikeet communities.

The Red Bloodwoods are at, or close to, their maturity as they typically grow to approximately 20-30 metres and the ones in the Park are about that height. They are full of flowers and buds at the moment and as the flowers are on the edge of the canopy the creamy mass is very showy.

The showy flowers

Corymbia gummifera flower

As befitting a tree of this magnificence the gumnuts or seed capsules are stylish too. They are urn-shaped and about 1 cm wide. 

Corymbia gummifera seed capsule 

Lorikeets are only one of the nectarivores that love the bloodwood. In the wild honeyeaters, flying foxes, gliders, blossom bats, and diurnal and nocturnal insects also feed on the nectar; while Sugar Gliders eat the sap. It is thought that birds and flying foxes carry the pollen far afield ensuring there is cross pollination. Once the seeds ripen the cockatoos will come into feed so the screaming isn't over yet.

The characteristic red gum staining the bark

The bloodwoods are named because of the sap or kino that seeps from wounds on the tree. This can be a brilliant red in some specimens. Our trees don’t show much of this but a couple of branches that came down in the recent high wind are scarred red.

The timber is a deep red colour and termite resistant so is used for rough construction purposes such as fencing, power poles, house stumps, mining timbers and railway sleepers.

The aborigines used the sap to stop fraying on their fishing lines, and both the sap and the leaves had medicinal qualities particularly for open sores. 

Corymb structure of the floral clusters

Corymbia; from the Latin ‘corymbium’, referring to the branched structure of the terminal floral clusters called a corymb.

gummifera; from the Latin, referring to the gum production that is characteristic of this species.