While the Blue Gum is not a houseplant but rather a towering tree in mediterranean climates, I painted it so I'll include it here anyways!
I have been in love with blue gums ever since I went to California for the first time 7 years ago. They are one of the plants I will always associate with my time on the central coast so the first watercolor I did when I moved away was this one here, and it hangs next to a letterpress print map of the area that I bought the day before I moved to Portland.
So this species of Eucalyptus, which is native to southeastern Australia, usually grows near the coast to about 150 feet tall (!), which it does pretty quickly. One of the most spectacular things about these trees is their bark. The trunks are covered in big slabs of brittle and fibrous multicolored bark that curl and chip off to reveal smooth white, pink, and/or brown wood underneath.
In a similar way to how to feels to walk through a grove of pine trees, the peeling bark of a blue gum leaves a soft layer of debris on the forest floor that gives and crunches as you pad through it.
There really isn't any part of this tree that isn't special. The leaves are evergreen and have a "glaucous" coating, meaning they have a layer of soft, matte wax on them that gives them a grey-blue tint. This coating is thicker on young leaves, so older leaves are more green than blue. They hang in pendulous bunches and can be up to almost a foot long while staying under an inch wide all the way down to a point.
They have white "bottlebrush" flowers that are a great source of pollen for local bees, and lead to cute woody fruits, like their version of an acorn, with button-like tops that fall to the ground and make it easy to distinguish a blue gum even when the leaves are 70 feet above your head.
In my favorite state park of all time, Montaña de Oro on the CA central coast, these trees are planted in big stands on a grid. Back in the late 1800's, they were planted to be used as timber, but when it was realized that the lumber wasn't great, they were left, and now form a fully matured, organized forest. The amount of shedding bark left on the forest floor suppresses growth of other plants, which preserves the views down the rows of trees, even all these years later. But the shedding bark isn't considered a good thing in most other cases. Because of the bark and the high volume of seeds produced, this tree is considered invasive by the National Parks Service.
Even if you have never been up close and personal with this plant, you almost surely know what it smells like because eucalyptus essential oil is primarily made from this species!
Eucalyptus globulus are very high in oils, which are distilled from the leaves for essential oil sales, but also make this tree an extremely high fire risk. When heated during a fire, the volatile oils can cause explosions that send flaming wood in every direction and spread fires really fast.
So, this tree is going out of style for a lot of reasons. And while on paper, this tree is not appealing, it holds a corner of my heart anyways. I feel very connected to the earth peeling of a piece of its bark to check for critters underneath, or breaking a leaf into pieces to smell its crisp minty aroma. The contrast between the soft dreamy experience of being in a grove of blue gums by the cliffs of Montaña de Oro on an overcast day, and the idea of one violently exploding in a fire is fascinating.
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