''Melaleuca wimmerensis'', commonly known as the Wimmera bottlebrush, is a plant in the myrtle

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Myrtaceae Myrtaceae, the myrtle family, is a family of dicotyledonous plants placed within the order Myrtales. Myrtle, pōhutukawa, bay rum tree, clove, guava, acca (feijoa), allspice, and eucalyptus are some notable members of this group. All speci ...

and is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the state of Victoria in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. (Some Australian state herbaria continue to use the name ''Callistemon wimmerensis''). It is a recently (2008) discovered shrub, often with many stems arising from a lignotuber and is similar to ''

Melaleuca paludicola ''Melaleuca paludicola'', commonly known as river bottlebrush, is a plant in the myrtle family Myrtaceae, and is endemic to eastern Australia. (Some Australian state herbaria continue to use the names ''Callistemon sieberi'' or ''Callistemon pal ...

'' but has pink or mauve flowers tipped with yellow anthers over a short period between October and early December.

Description

''Melaleuca wimmerensis'' is a shrub growing to tall, often multistemmed with a dense crown and fibrous, grey to brown bark. Its leaves are arranged alternately and are mainly long, wide, narrow elliptic to egg-shaped tapering to a sharply pointed end. There is a mid-vein but the lateral veins are indistinct. Oil glands are visible on the lower surface of the leaves. The flowers are arranged in spikes on the ends of branches which continue to grow after flowering and are in diameter with 12 to 50 individual flowers. The petals are long and fall off as the flower ages and there are 45-50 stamens in each flower. The filaments of the stamens are pink, tipped with a yellow anther. Flowering occurs over a short period between October and December and is followed by fruit which are woody capsules, long when mature.

Taxonomy and naming

''Callistemon wimmerensis'' was first formally described in 2008 by Neil Marriott and Geoffrey Carr in Muelleria, based on a population occurring on

crown land Crown land (sometimes spelled crownland), also known as royal domain, is a territorial area belonging to the monarch, who personifies the Crown. It is the equivalent of an entailed estate and passes with the monarchy, being inseparable from it. ...

on the west bank of the Mackenzie River near

Horsham Horsham is a market town on the upper reaches of the River Arun on the fringe of the Weald in West Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Nearby to ...

. In 2011 another population was reported to have been discovered in a swamp in the southern Grampians.

Lyndley Craven Lyndley Alan Craven (3 September 1945 – 11 July 2014) was a botanist who became the Principal Research Scientist of the Australian National Herbarium. Lyndley ("Lyn") Craven worked for the CSIRO plant taxonomy unit of the New Guinea Survey Gro ...

transferred the species to ''Melaleuca'' in 2009, giving the description in

Novon The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropist Henry Shaw. Its herbarium, with more than 6.6 million s ...

. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

(''wimmerensis'') refers to the locality where the species is found. ''Callistemon wimmerensis'' is regarded as a synonym of ''Melaleuca wimmerensis'' by the

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 ...

Distribution and habitat

This melaleuca occurs in the

Wimmera The Wimmera is a region of the Australian state of Victoria. The district is located within parts of the Loddon Mallee and the Grampians regions; and covers the dryland farming area south of the range of Mallee scrub, east of the South Austral ...

district in Victoria growing in

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

near rivers and streams.

Conservation

''Melaleuca wimmerensis'' (as ''Callistemon wimmerensis'') has been classified as "critically endangered" under the Australian Government Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5022794 wimmerensis Flora of Victoria (Australia) Critically endangered flora of Australia Myrtales of Australia Plants described in 2009