Botanical tattoo of a eucalyptus sprig with gum blossom buds and long leaves in muted greens and black on the upper arm.

Eucalyptus sprig on an upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A eucalyptus branch runs diagonally across the upper arm, with clusters of round, fluffy gum blossoms at the top and long, narrow leaves with fine vein lines below. The linework is bold and dark, with soft shading in olive and sage greens and solid black areas on the leaves for depth. The palette is muted and earthy, and the design fills most of the arm against a plain light background.

Traditional Botanical Upper arm Leaves Branch Plant

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Walter, the hall smelt of floor wax and wet wool again on Saturday, and Mr Pellow's band played the same waltz four times because nobody could remember how the second half went. I danced it with the cooper's boy, who trod on my good shoes, and then with old Ada's nephew, who only wanted to talk about the bore water at Coolabah. I kept looking at the door.

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The gum trees along Fenner Street have gone grey with dust, but the ones by the creek are in flower, all those fluffy heads like little white pincushions. I picked a sprig on the way in and tucked it behind the stage curtain where the lamp keeps it warm. Mrs Dunning caught me at it and said a flower in the hall is bad luck unless somebody's getting married, so I told her it was for the fellow who fixes the piano. She didn't believe me, which was rather the point.

The leaves have curled down the way they do before a hot wind, dark on the underside, grey-green on top, and you'd think they were giving up. They aren't. Ada says the gums know something about waiting that we don't, and I've decided that's true enough to be going on with.

I've pressed the sprig between two pages of the hymn book and I'm sending it with this. Keep it in your coat, not your pocket, because the blossom sheds at the slightest knock. When the train comes through on the twelfth, I'll be on the platform in my blue dress, the one with the mended cuff. Don't be late, and don't you dare arrive smelling of the engine shed.

Yours, Lil