''Melaleuca conothamnoides'' is a shrub 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 of Western Australia. It is distinguished by its relatively large leaves, prominent oil glands and unusual bracts covering the flower buds before they open.

Description

''Melaleuca conothamnoides'' is a woody, branching shrub about high and wide. Its leaves are arranged alternately, are lance-shaped to oblong or elliptic in shape, mostly long and wide, usually with prominent oil glands and 3 to 5 parallel veins. The flowers are arranged in heads or short spikes, mostly at the ends of the branches which continue to grow after flowering but sometimes also in the upper leaf

axil A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, st ...

s. The heads contain 8 to 15 groups of flowers in threes and are up to in diameter. The flower buds are covered with overlapping greenish-black

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s. The petals are long and fall off as the flowers open. The

stamen The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filame ...

s are in five bundles around the edge of the flower, each bundle containing 7 to 9 purple or pinkish-mauve stamens. The main flowering season is from September to November but has been recorded as early as August and as late as January. After flowering, the fruit develop as roughly spherical or oval groups of woody capsules.

Taxonomy and naming

This species was first formally described in 1964 by

Charles Austin Gardner Charles Austin Gardner (6 January 1896 – 24 February 1970) was an English-born Western Australian botanist. Biography Born in Lancaster, in England, on 6 January 1896, Gardner emigrated to Western Australia with his family in 1909, whe ...

in the '' Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia'' from a specimen he collected himself about west of Tammin on a sandy, gravelly plain. 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 ...

(''conothamnoides'') refers to the similarity of this species to one in the genus '' Conothamnus''. The ending ''-oides'' is a Latin

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...

meaning "resembling" or "having the form of".

Distribution and habitat

This melaleuca is mainly found in sandy and gravelly soils in the drier wheatbelt between Tammin and Morawa in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Geraldton Sandplains, Jarrah Forest, Murchison 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 ...

Conservation status

''Melaleuca conothamoides'' is listed 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 en ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15372204 cuticularis Myrtales of Australia Rosids of Western Australia Plants described in 1964 Endemic flora of Western Australia