Yellowjacket, one of the yellow bloodwood family, can be found in the
hill country around Springsure. Growing on decomposed sandstone, the distinctive yellow/ginger coloured bark stands out like dogs ...... well it's really
easy to spot! Some of the larger trees are about 20 metres or more high with
trunks to about 600mm diameter. There's not a lot of it there so I had to wait for some windfall
to try it out. I found the branch wood to be quite unstable for a eucalypt,
cracking badly while drying and the lychtids had attacked the sapwood heavily.
When Mistletoe attaches to a YellowJacket tree it really sets off it's
defenses, creating large growths where the two plants interact. The sample
at left is the largest 'Mistletoe burl' I've seen - about 350mm across - the
Mistletoe branches are the dark ones at the top right. I still haven't
worked out what to do with this one!
Yellowjacket timber is reportedly light brown in colour but the piece I
found had an attractive pink hue to it. The timber machined like any other
eucalypt - nothing unexpected there - and it sanded well and took a fairly high
finish easily enough.
