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Spotted Gum

Corymbia maculata · Myrtaceae · all Corymbia records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: 1 condition stated in cited fire-evidence rows.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia; Global; Tasmania, Australia; Victoria, Australia
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: No state distribution is normalized.
Native range: No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established: No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness: No hardiness value is normalized.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status: Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status: Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here: No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context: Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context: Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Spotted Gum (Corymbia maculata) — Photo: (c) Thomas Mesaglio, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: tree
Region: Australia; Tasmania, Australia; Victoria, Australia
Rated in: Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia; Global; Tasmania, Australia; Victoria, Australia
Family: Myrtaceae
Evidence: 11 cited sources

Conditions in the fire evidence

These describe tested or rated plant material. They are not horticultural maintenance instructions.

irrigated: Shoot flammability patterns in native and exotic street tree species at the WUI of eastern Australia evidence row

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

Fire Resisting Garden Plants for the Urban Fringe and Rur…: remove from the Building Protection Zone; avoid in the Fuel Modified Zone [Texas Building Protection Zone] (with its avoid rating)

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Avoids (1)

Fire Resisting Garden Plants for the Urban Fringe and Rural Areas — Tasmania Fire Service (Chladil & Sheridan; photographs Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens) · 2017 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: utas-tree

“High Flammability”

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Shoot flammability patterns in native and exotic street tree species at the WUI of eastern Australia — Fire (Huber-Smith, Morley, Krix, Murray et al.; University of Technology Sydney) · 2023 · original source Primary evidence Lab-tested lineage: uts-murray-tree

“Measured; four flammability-attribute rankings were not concordant” · condition: irrigated

Shoot time-to-flame, flame duration, flaming events, and flame temperature were compared without an overall class.

Listed without a rating (8)

FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

8 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
- “time to flaming (s): 2.13” · score 2.13 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 4539; Ignitability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel dead; predrying no; device muffle furnace; site Grootemaat2017b-1; sampling december. Primary study Grootemaat2017b: Grootemaat, S., Wright, I. J., Van Bodegom, P. M., Cornelissen, J. H., & Shaw, V. (2017). Bark traits, decomposition and flammability of Australian forest trees. Australian Journal of Botany, 65, 327.
- “smouldering duration per mass (s/g): 46.68” · score 46.68 (FLAMITS — smouldering duration per mass (s/g))
  
  FLAMITS record 4549; Sustainability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel dead; predrying no; device muffle furnace; site Grootemaat2017b-1; sampling december. Primary study Grootemaat2017b: Grootemaat, S., Wright, I. J., Van Bodegom, P. M., Cornelissen, J. H., & Shaw, V. (2017). Bark traits, decomposition and flammability of Australian forest trees. Australian Journal of Botany, 65, 327.
- “mass loss rate (g/s): 19.08” · score 19.08 (FLAMITS — mass loss rate (g/s))
  
  FLAMITS record 4559; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel dead; predrying no; device muffle furnace; site Grootemaat2017b-1; sampling december. Primary study Grootemaat2017b: Grootemaat, S., Wright, I. J., Van Bodegom, P. M., Cornelissen, J. H., & Shaw, V. (2017). Bark traits, decomposition and flammability of Australian forest trees. Australian Journal of Botany, 65, 327.
- “flaming duration per mass (s/g): 12.75” · score 12.75 (FLAMITS — flaming duration per mass (s/g))
  
  FLAMITS record 4569; Sustainability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel dead; predrying no; device muffle furnace; site Grootemaat2017b-1; sampling december. Primary study Grootemaat2017b: Grootemaat, S., Wright, I. J., Van Bodegom, P. M., Cornelissen, J. H., & Shaw, V. (2017). Bark traits, decomposition and flammability of Australian forest trees. Australian Journal of Botany, 65, 327.
- “time to flaming (s): 7.07” · score 7.07 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 4579; Ignitability measurement; plant part bark; fuel live; predrying no; device muffle furnace; site Grootemaat2017b-1; sampling december. Primary study Grootemaat2017b: Grootemaat, S., Wright, I. J., Van Bodegom, P. M., Cornelissen, J. H., & Shaw, V. (2017). Bark traits, decomposition and flammability of Australian forest trees. Australian Journal of Botany, 65, 327.
- “smouldering duration per mass (s/g): 133.22” · score 133.22 (FLAMITS — smouldering duration per mass (s/g))
  
  FLAMITS record 4589; Sustainability measurement; plant part bark; fuel live; predrying no; device muffle furnace; site Grootemaat2017b-1; sampling december. Primary study Grootemaat2017b: Grootemaat, S., Wright, I. J., Van Bodegom, P. M., Cornelissen, J. H., & Shaw, V. (2017). Bark traits, decomposition and flammability of Australian forest trees. Australian Journal of Botany, 65, 327.
- “mass loss rate (g/s): 6.82” · score 6.82 (FLAMITS — mass loss rate (g/s))
  
  FLAMITS record 4599; Combustibility measurement; plant part bark; fuel live; predrying no; device muffle furnace; site Grootemaat2017b-1; sampling december. Primary study Grootemaat2017b: Grootemaat, S., Wright, I. J., Van Bodegom, P. M., Cornelissen, J. H., & Shaw, V. (2017). Bark traits, decomposition and flammability of Australian forest trees. Australian Journal of Botany, 65, 327.
- “flaming duration per mass (s/g): 31.24” · score 31.24 (FLAMITS — flaming duration per mass (s/g))
  
  FLAMITS record 4609; Sustainability measurement; plant part bark; fuel live; predrying no; device muffle furnace; site Grootemaat2017b-1; sampling december. Primary study Grootemaat2017b: Grootemaat, S., Wright, I. J., Van Bodegom, P. M., Cornelissen, J. H., & Shaw, V. (2017). Bark traits, decomposition and flammability of Australian forest trees. Australian Journal of Botany, 65, 327.

Fire-resistant trees instead

Post oak
Quercus stellata

Red oak
Quercus rubra

Gambel Oak
Quercus gambelii

Basswood
Tilia americana

Oak
Quercus spp.

Dahurian larch
Larix gmelinii

Fire-resistant trees listed above

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata ·

Corymbia maculata (Spotted Gum). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/corymbia-maculata/. Last verified 2026-08-23.