Hello all, I juat purchased this eucalyptus tree from a local individual in Florida. I am in 9b/10a. Most winters are mild but we do get that rare occasional drop into the high 20s and rarely the mid 20s. So with that said picking the right eucalyptus for my area is extremely important as the cold hardiness of gum trees can vary wildly (with the famed rainbow eucalyptus being the biggest cold wimp of them all despite being sold all over Florida). Meanwhile others can take into the teens or lower. So, ... can anyone ID this gum tree? It would really help to know if I'm wasting my time or not. I'll take even rough guesses at this point! Help! Lol
You should try to get more information from the grower of the specimen you bought. Starting of course with do they know what kind it is. And if they got the seed from elsewhere or if they collected it from a local planting. In which case maybe you can view the source trees yourself, use their adult characters to determine the involved species. Also, there may be a comparatively small pool of species that are grown in your area. So, just finding out that the material used was of nearby origin could narrow down the possibilities a lot. Otherwise, there are hundreds of species. And you don't yet have adult foliage, bark, flowers and fruits to work with.
There are 700 plus species of eucalypts here in Australia, to identfy you need closeup photos of seed pod (we call them gumnuts) and flower. The leaves can vary with age of plant, so not so important. Then you would need to contact a plant specialist. Be careful, gum trees can grow to enormous sizes.n
