sap

This initially gooey and then crumbly red sap is produced by a number of eucalypt species and collects around wounds in the bark.

Sap oozes in long slabs like lava flows or clumps in bunches like redcurrants. Sometimes it hangs like this little stalagmite extending with the drip-drip flow until weight finally breaks the delicate needle.

The colour comes from a substance Kino which thickens and coagulates the sap. Aboriginal Autralians collect, crush and boil the sap into a tea for treatment of colds and apparently it was used as a throat gargle until antiseptics were 'invented'.
Judging by swarms of ants scurrying around on the trunk, even though they risk getting well and truly stuck this healing sap must be as good for them as it is for the tree.