Now that we have flowers to examine, it appears that the towering, pale-barked eucalyptus in our front yard is actually a Eucalyptus regnans (aka Mountain Ash, Victorian Ash, Swamp Gum etc), tallest of the eucalypts (and tallest of all flowering plants), and possibly the tallest of all plants.
Mountain Ash live for at least four hundred years and grow, when young, at a rate of about one metre per year. In the 1850s, G. W. Robinson arranged with loggers in the Dandenong Ranges to notify him when they found a very tall tree: every one he measured exceeded 91 metres, the tallest being 104 metres. Since the tallest trees were felled first it is likely that some of the Mountain Ash in this area stood at over 120 metres high.
So, at about forty metres, ours is obviously only a young specimen—which is why the area of rough basal bark is so small, and why we had so much trouble identifying it (that and the fact we hadn't seen a flower or gumnut spray). And, given the growth rate, it appears that the tree was planted, or sprung up from the earth at about the time the house was built.
It is amazing to think that in another forty years our Mountain Ash will look like the beauties up the road in Sherbrooke Forest!
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