''Melaleuca exuvia'' 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 of Western Australia. It is easily distinguished by its unusual rough, minni ritchi bark which peels to reveal a new layer of smooth, salmon-pink bark. It is a newly described (2004) species which was formerly included in '' Melaleuca uncinata''.

Description

''Melaleuca exuvia'' is a large shrub growing to tall with rough, pinkish-grey bark which peels annually in a pattern known as minni ritchi to reveal new, smooth salmon-pink bark. It often has more than one stem and a crown up to across. Its leaves are erect, cylinder-shaped, linear to narrow elliptic and circular in cross-section, narrowing to a usually hooked end. They are long and in diameter. The flowers are white to yellow and arranged in heads containing 3 to 8 groups of flowers in threes. The petals are oval in shape, long and the stamens are arranged in five bundles around the flower, each bundle containing 5 to 8 stamens. Flowering occurs in late spring and is followed by fruit which are woody capsules long, often retained on the stems for many years.

Taxonomy and naming

The first formal description of this plant was made in 2004 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 found at Key Rocks near

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 ...

. 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 ...

(''exuvia'') is from the Latin word meaning "cast skin" or "slough", referring to the unusual way this species sheds its bark.

Distribution and habitat

This melaleuca occurs in a small area in and between the

Lort River Lort River is a river located in the Goldfields-Esperance region and the Eastern Mallee sub-region of Western Australia. Lort River was named in 1848 by John Septimus Roe the Surveyor General of Western Australia while leading a five-man expl ...

, Lake Johnson and Queen Victoria Spring districts in the Coolgardie, Great Victoria Desert 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 ...

, growing sandy soils near drainage channels and the edge of salt lakes.

Conservation status

''Melaleuca exuvia'' 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=Q6811020

exuvia In biology, exuviae are the remains of an exoskeleton and related structures that are left after ecdysozoans (including insects, crustaceans and arachnids) have moulted. The exuviae of an animal can be important to biologists as they can often b ...

Plants described in 2004 Endemic flora of Western Australia