Red Bloodwood has a thick cork like bark that is resistant to fire damage; although the bark itself is usually charred and black. It is long-lived, after about 150-200 years it starts to drop large branches and the scars eventually form ideal nesting hollows. Bloodwoods are amongst the largest and oldest – perhaps as much as 400 years old – trees at Mandeni Park.
It was not a popular saw log timber and was not suitable for railway sleepers because it tends to split along its large gum veins. The thick red gum sometimes bleeds through scars onto the bark. It makes good firewood and fence posts, but in the old days there was a plentiful supply of other suitable firewood species which were also felled for timber. This has allowed the Red Bloodwood to survive in the areas that were not cleared for farming or grazing.
Red Bloodwoods provide copious nectar and large flowers, generally in late autumn when other flowers are scarce, it is then visited by a range of birds, small possums, insects and fruit bats. In short, it is an ideal habitat tree.
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