''Melaleuca eulobata'' 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 west coast of
Western Australia. It is a shrub resembling ''
Melaleuca campanae'' with its heads of pink flowers in late spring but is distinguished from that species by its
sepals - in ''M. campane'' these are reduced to a ring of tissue but ''M. eulobata'' has distinct
calyx
Calyx or calyce (plural "calyces"), from the Latin ''calix'' which itself comes from the Ancient Greek ''κάλυξ'' (''kálux'') meaning "husk" or "pod", may refer to:
Biology
* Calyx (anatomy), collective name for several cup-like structures ...
lobes.
Description
''Melaleuca eulobata'' is a shrub growing to tall with the young branches covered with short, silky hairs. Its leaves are arranged alternately, long, wide, flat, narrow egg-shaped with the end tapering to a point and three parallel veins.
The flowers are purple and arranged in heads 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 composed of 4 to 7 groups of flowers in threes. The petals are long and fall off as the flower opens. There are five bundles of stamens around the flower, each with 9 or 10 stamens. Flowering occurs mainly in September and October and is followed by fruit which are woody
capsules long, in almost spherical clusters around the stem.
[
]
Taxonomy and naming
''Melaleuca eulobata'' was first formally described in 1999 by Lyndley Craven in '' Australian Systematic Botany'' from a specimen collected on the road to Monkey Mia
Monkey Mia is a popular tourist destination located about 900 km north of Perth, Western Australia. The reserve is 25 km northeast of the town of Denham in the Shark Bay Marine Park and World Heritage Site.
The main attraction are t ...
.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 ...
(''eulobata'') is from the Ancient Greek ''eu-'' meaning “well", "thoroughly” or "truly" and ''lobos'', "lobe", referring to the distinct calyx lobes.
Distribution and habitat
This melaleuca occurs near Shark Bay
Shark Bay (Malgana: ''Gathaagudu'', "two waters") is a World Heritage Site in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. The http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/world/shark-bay area is located approximately north of Perth, on the ...
[ in the Carnarvon 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 eulobata'' 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 ...
.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q6811016
eulobata
Plants described in 1999
Endemic flora of Western Australia
Taxa named by Lyndley Craven