Eucalyptus populnea (Bimble or Poplar Box), Australia

Recorded by Kim V. Goldsmith on a farm west of Narromine New South Wales (Wiradjuri Country), Australia. March 2025. Contact mics were placed on the trunk of the tree in this recording, in the soil at the base of the tree, and in the ground around the dripline. Atmos from the site was recorded with Zoom H2n and shotgun microphone. It was a quiet spot on the farm, near a public road on the edge of a dry ephemeral wetland.

*A pair of Bimble box in a grazing paddock on a farm, Narromine NSW Australia.*

Found on grassy woodland slopes and plains of inland New South Wales and Queensland, the Bimble Box is a tree that grows to about 20 metres tall, with a spread of about 5 metres, and is sometimes multi-trunked. The bark is rough on all but the smallest branches or on the trunk and larger branches, fibrous-flaky (‘box’), grey to grey-brown, often with whitish patches. It sheds in small ribbons.

The distinctive leaves give it its common name of poplar box. The leaves are broadly lanceolate, elliptic, ovate or rhomboidal and 5 – 11cm long, glossy and the same colour both sides.

The flowers are white, and mature flower buds are 3-5 mm long, with caps shorter than the base. Flower clusters 4 to more than 15 flowers, forming large clusters, at the ends of the stems or sometimes at the bases of the leaves. They flower in the autumn-summer.

Find more of Kim V. Goldsmith’s work online here and here