One of Tasmania’s unique trees is the Leatherwood (Eucryphia lucida). It is endemic to Tasmania, found nowhere else on earth, and contributes to Tasmania’s Gondwanic heritage, with ancestor Eucryphia species found in South America.

Tasmania’s leatherwood, Eucryphia lucida, currently in flower in my garden 🙂

Tasmania’s leatherwood, Eucryphia lucida, in flower

Close up of the flowers after a light rain

Tasmania’s leatherwood tree is most well known as the source of it’s fragrant honey. Indeed, it is quite a unique taste of Tasmania, and another important cog in Tasmania’s clean, green image.

A leatherwood flower, captured in the Arve forests prior to the fires a couple of years ago.

A few flowers side by side

The leatherwood is a great tree to plant in your own garden, as the flowers are very fragrant and attract bees to work their magic. In my garden it is sheilded from the the relatively fierce afternoon sun but gets good morning light. Back in the days when Tasmania was selecting a floral emblems, the leatherwood was short listed, but lost out to the Blue Gum. You can read more about that here.

This one also looks quite nice in black and white 🙂

Where to see the leatherwood

The leatherwood is found in southern and western rainforests. The best places to see it include the Tahune (including Arve and Hartz Mountains) – although this area was hit hard by the fires of 2019). You can see it at Lake St Clair – the walk between Echo Point and the Visitor Centre is very nice at this time of year. You can see it quite easily along the Franklin River nature trail, Nelson Falls, Montezuma Falls and Bird River, amongst many other locations.