''Melaleuca barlowii'' is a plant in the myrtle family,

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 to the

south-west The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

of Western Australia. It is similar to a number of other Western Australian melaleucas such as '' M. conothamnoides'' with its purple pom-pom flower heads but is a more erect shrub with different leaves and the fruiting clusters have a different shape.

Description

''Melaleuca barlowii'' grows to a height of with stems and leaves that are glabrous except when very young. Its leaves are arranged alternately, narrow oval or narrow elliptic in shape, long, wide tapering to a point. The flowers are a shade of pink to purple and arranged in heads or short spikes on the ends of branches which continue to grow after flowering, sometimes also in the upper leaf axils. The heads are up to in diameter and contain between 10 and 15 groups of flowers in threes. The stamens are arranged in bundles of five around the flower, with 9 to 11 stamens in each bundle. The flowering season is November and December and is followed by fruit which are woody capsules long in an oval-shaped cluster around the stems.

Taxonomy and naming

''Melaleuca barlowii'' was first formally described in 1999 by Lyndley Craven and

Brendan Lepschi Brendan John Lepschi (born 1969) is an Australian botanist, whose interests include the taxonomy of the genus ''Melaleuca'', the families Santalaceae and Goodeniaceae and how exotic species become naturalised. He is the curator of the Australi ...

in '' Australian Systematic Botany'' from a specimen collected near Tardun. 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 ...

(''barlowii'') is in honour of Bryan Alwyn Barlow, melaleuca specialist and expert in the mistletoe family,

Loranthaceae Loranthaceae, commonly known as the showy mistletoes, is a family of flowering plants. It consists of about 75 genera and 1,000 species of woody plants, many of them hemiparasites. The three terrestrial species are ''Nuytsia floribunda'' (the W ...

Distribution and habitat

This melaleuca occurs in the Mullewa and Perenjori districts in the Avon Wheatbelt and Yalgoo

biogeographic regions A biogeographic realm or ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into bioregions, which are further subdivided into ecoregions. De ...

. It grows in sand and clay loam in shrubland and in roadside reserves.

Conservation status

''Melaleuca barlowii'' is listed as " Priority Three" by the

Government of Western Australia The Government of Western Australia, formally referred to as His Majesty's Government of Western Australia, is the Australian state democratic administrative authority of Western Australia. It is also commonly referred to as the WA Government o ...

Department of Parks and Wildlife The Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW) was the department of the Government of Western Australia responsible for managing lands described in the ''Conservation and Land Management Act 1984'' and implementing the state's conservation and e ...

, meaning that it is known from only a few locations and is not currently in imminent danger.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q6810989 barlowii Myrtales of Australia Plants described in 1999 Endemic flora of Western Australia Taxa named by Lyndley Craven