Melaleuca leuropoma 

Location & distribution maps

Common name:         ...

Conservation status: ...

Etymology:   

• Melaleuca is derived from the Ancient Greek μέλας (mélas) meaning "dark" or "black" and λευκός (leukós) meaning "white"

• The specific epithet (leuropoma) is derived from ancient Greek words meaning "smooth" or "polished", and "a lid" or "a cover", referring to the unusual, glossy petals covering the flower buds

Flowers

• The flowers colour is variable, from pink or purple to yellow or white and shades in between

• The flowers are arranged in heads or short spikes on the ends of branches which continue to grow after flowering and sometimes also in the upper leaf axils

• The heads are up to 22 mm in diameter with 3 to 12 groups of flowers in threes

• The petals are glossy brown in bud, 1.5–3 mm long and fall off soon after the flower opens

• The outer surface of the floral cup (the hypanthium) is hairy and there are five bundles of stamens around the flower, each with 7 to 11 stamens

• Flowering occurs mainly in spring but often extends into March

Fruit:                            

• Woody, cup-shaped capsules, 2.5–4.5 mm long, usually in tight, almost spherical clusters along the stem

Leaves:         

• Its leaves are arranged alternately and are 4–17 mm long, 0.6–1.5 mm wide, linear to very narrow egg-shaped and elliptic to almost circular in cross section

• They are also glossy and often have short, silky hairs

Stem & branches: 

Roots:         

Habit:        

• A shrub sometimes growing to 1.5 m 

Habitat:   

• A range of vegetation associations in sand over sandstone and limestone

Distribution:                  

• Between the Kalbarri, Gairdner Range and Moora districts in the Avon Wheatbelt, Geraldton Sandplains and Swan Coastal Plain biogeographic regions

Additional notes:     

• Taxonomy 

  • Melaleuca leuropoma was first formally described in 1999 by Lyndley Craven in Australian Systematic Botany from a specimen collected 11 km north of Eneabba

Sources of information:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melaleuca_leuropoma (2024)