''Melaleuca brophyi'' 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 a small to medium-sized shrub with small, fleshy leaves and clusters of fruit that resemble soccer balls.

Description

''Melaleuca brophyi'' is a shrub which grows to a height of between . Its leaves are crowded, spirally arranged, fleshy, warty, almost circular in cross-section and have prominent oil glands. The leaves are long. Small, yellow, almost spherical groups of flowers about in diameter appear on the ends of the branches between June and November. As with other melaleucas, the stamens are in groups of five and in this species there are about three to six stamens per bundle. The fruit are woody capsules in small, spherical clusters with a diameter of about and resemble soccer balls.

Taxonomy and naming

''Melaleuca brophyi'' was first described in 1999 by Lyndley Craven from a specimen found "about south of Lake Biddy on the road to Newdegate". 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 ...

(''brophyi'') is in recognition of the work of Joseph J. Brophy for his work on essential oils in the families

and Rutaceae.

Distribution and habitat

This melaleuca occurs between Southern Cross,

Norseman The Norsemen (or Norse people) were a North Germanic ethnolinguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the Old Norse language. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and is the pre ...

and Esperance in the Avon Wheatbelt, Esperance Plains and Mallee

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 ...

in Western Australia. It grows in black clay in saline, low-lying areas.

Conservation status

''Melaleuca brophyi'' is classified as "not threatened" 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 ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q6810994 brophyi Plants described in 1999 Endemic flora of Western Australia