Melaleuca brachyandra
species of plant
Melaleuca brachyandra, commonly known as prickly bottlebrush or scarlet bottlebrush, is a plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia in Australia. (Some Australian state herbaria continue to use the name Callistemon brachyandrus.) It is a shrub or small tree with narrow leaves and showy red and green flowers making it an ideal ornamental plant in temperate areas.
Description
Melaleuca brachyandra is a shrub growing to 1.5–8 m (5–30 ft) tall with hard bark and a rigid habit. Its leaves are arranged alternately and are 18–61 mm (0.7–2 in) long, 0.5–1.7 mm (0.02–0.07 in) wide, linear in shape, kidney-shaped in cross section and with the end tapering to a sharp point.
The flowers are arranged in spikes on the ends of branches that continue to grow after flowering. The spikes are up to 35 mm (1 in) in diameter with 7 to 36 individual flowers. The petals are 2.8–4.9 mm (0.1–0.2 in) long and fall off as the flower ages. There are 50 to 84 stamens in each flower, with their "stalks" (the filaments) rich crimson and "tips" (the anthers) green. Flowering occurs from September to January and is followed by fruits that are woody capsules, 9–12.4 mm (0.4–0.5 in) long.
Taxonomy and naming
Melaleuca brachyandra was first formally described in 2006 by Lyndley Craven in Novon.
The public source identifies “Melaleuca brachyandra” as species of plant. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Melaleuca, brachyandra and species.
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This entry incorporates text from “Melaleuca brachyandra” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.