''Melaleuca densa'' 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 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 bushy shrub with profuse cream, yellow or greenish flowers and overlapping leaves on the youngest shoots.

Description

''Melaleuca densa'' grows to a height of about and has fibrous, grey or almost white bark. Its leaves are arranged alternately or often in threes around the stem, each leaf long and wide, oval shaped to almost circular but tapering to a soft point. The yellow or cream coloured flowers are in heads or spikes at the ends of branches that continue to grow after flowering. Each head has between 15 and 37 individual flowers, making a group up to long and in diameter. At the base of each flower there are brown, papery, overlapping bracts which fall off as the flowers develop. The stamens are arranged in 5 bundles around the flower, each bundle containing 3 to 6 stamens. Flowering occurs from August to September but sometimes continues to December. The fruit are woody capsules long with the sepals remaining as rounded teeth.

Taxonomy and naming

This species was first formally described in 1812 by Robert Brown in ''

Hortus Kewensis ''Hortus Kewensis, or a Catalogue of the Plants Cultivated in the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew'' by William Aiton was a 1789 catalogue of all the plant species then in cultivation at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is ...

''. The reason Brown chose 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 ...

(''densa'') is not known but it is from the Latin ''densus'', meaning "dense", and may refer to the density of the leaves or of the flowers in the inflorescence.

Distribution and habitat

''Melaleuca densa'' occurs from the

Stirling Range The Stirling Range or Koikyennuruff is a range of mountains and hills in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, south-east of Perth. It is over wide from west to east, stretching from the highway between Mount Barker and Cranb ...

to Augusta in the Avon Wheatbelt, Esperance Plains, Jarrah Forest, Mallee,

Swan Coastal Plain The Swan Coastal Plain in Western Australia is the geographic feature which contains the Swan River as it travels west to the Indian Ocean. The coastal plain continues well beyond the boundaries of the Swan River and its tributaries, as a geol ...

and

Warren A warren is a network of wild rodent or lagomorph, typically rabbit burrows. Domestic warrens are artificial, enclosed establishment of animal husbandry dedicated to the raising of rabbits for meat and fur. The term evolved from the medieval Angl ...

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 sandy or clayey soils in seasonally wet flats, in swamps and on riverbanks.

Conservation status

''Melaleuca densa'' 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 e ...

Gallery

Image:Melaleuca densa regeneration.jpg, Dense regeneration after fire Image:Melaleuca densa form.jpg, Large shrub form Image:Melaleuca densa fruit.jpg, Fruit Image:Melaleuca densa (habit).JPG, Habit on

Bluff Knoll Bluff Knoll is the highest peak of the Stirling Range in the Great Southern (Western Australia), Great Southern region of Western Australia (WA). It is above sea level, with a prominence of 650 m (2,130 ft). The local Aboriginal peop ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15371091 densa Myrtales of Australia Rosids of Western Australia Plants described in 1812 Endemic flora of Western Australia