by Shane Sody
One of the most popular trees in your Adelaide Park Lands is one that tends to stand out, due to its height.
There are more than 4,300 of these: Sugar Gums (Eucalyptus cladocalyx) in your Adelaide Park Lands but that number might be about to drop substantially, due to an imminent State Government threatened cull for “re-development” of the North Adelaide Golf courses on Possum Park / Pirltawardli (Park 1).
Sugar gums are native to only three regions in South Australia, (Kangaroo Island, Flinders Ranges and the Eyre Peninsula) but have been introduced to your Park Lands and to many other locations around the world, such as northern and southern Africa, California, Hawaii, Arizona, Israel, Chile, Greece, Portugal and Spain, where the durable, termite-resistant wood has been used for furniture, flooring, posts, construction timber and railway sleepers.
Despite their broad dispersal around the world, Sugar Gums are on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species on which, since 2019, they have been listed as “vulnerable”. Despite being introduced to new locations (in your Adelaide Park Lands and elsewhere) their local population has declined by an estimated 32% since European settlement in SA.
Koalas have been known to frequent Sugar Gums in your Adelaide Park Lands, though koalas generally tend to prefer other eucalyptus species.
Koala in a Sugar Gum (Eucalyptus cladocalyx) in Denise Norton Park / Pardipardinyilla (Park 2) before the 2025 re-development of the Aquatic Centre in this Park.
Sugar gums are notable for their mottled colourful yellow to orange bark, strongly discolourous leaves and inflorescences grouped on leafless branchlets inside the tree crown. The old bark is smooth and grey, shedding in irregular patches to expose the fresh yellowy-brown bark. Flowers are creamy-white in summer. The capsules are barrel to urn shaped.
It flowers in summer, producing white-cream-yellow flowers. See the top (banner) pic.
Sugar gums in the Flinders Ranges reach up to 35 metres and have the classic "gum" habit, with a straight trunk having a diameter at breast height of 1 to 1.5 m and steep branches occurring about halfway up. Each main branch ends with its own little canopy. They are commonly cultivated as farm windbreaks and for timber. Eyre Peninsula and Kangaroo Island trees are much shorter, typically between 8 and 15 m in height, and often have crooked trunks and a thinner trunks.
One of the largest Sugar gums in your Adelaide Park Lands; this specimen in Palmer Gardens / Pangki Pangki (Park 28) probably planted in the 1880s if not earlier. Pic: @ravine /iNaturalist Creative Commons licence
In your Adelaide Park Lands, they have been planted, and have thrived for generations, in;
several southern Parks close to Greenhill Road, and in
northern Park Lands, such as in Lefevre Park / Nantu Wama (Park 6); and
King Rodney Park / Ityamai-itpine (Park 15).
The location of all known Sugar Gums in your Adelaide Park Lands. Source: City of Adelaide tree map.
The author of this article, Shane Sody, was the President of the Adelaide Park Lands Association from 2107 to 2025 and remains the editor of the semi-monthly newsletter, "Open Green Public".
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