''Melaleuca similis'' 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 sepa ...

of Western Australia. It is a small shrub, similar to '' Melaleuca stramentosa'' with its narrow, almost cylindrical leaves and heads of pink to purple flowers but lacks the matted, silky hairs on the young leaves and outer edge of the flower cup.

Description

''Melaleuca similis'' is a shrub growing to tall with dense foliage. Its leaves are long, wide, linear to very narrow egg-shaped, roughly circular in cross section. The flowers are a shade of pink to purple and arranged in heads on the ends of branches which continue to grow after flowering and sometimes also in the upper leaf axils. Each head contains up to 4 groups of flowers in threes and is up to in diameter. The outer surface of the flower cup (the hypanthium) is hairy although it lacks the woolly, matted hairs of ''M. stramentosa''. The petals are long and fall off as the flower matures. There are five bundles of

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 around the flower, each with 4 or 5 stamens. Flowering occurs in October or November and is followed by fruit which are woody capsules long in loose clusters along the stem.

Taxonomy and naming

''Melaleuca similis'' was first formally described in 1999 by Lyndley Craven in '' Australian Systematic Botany'' from a specimen collected about west of Scaddan. 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 ...

(''similis'') is a Latin word meaning "like" or "resembling" referring to the similarity of this species to others growing in nearby areas, especially '' Melaleuca plumea'' and '' Melaleuca stramentosa''.

Distribution and habitat

''Melaleuca similis'' occurs in the

Ravensthorpe Ravensthorpe may refer to any of the following places. England *Ravensthorpe, Dewsbury in West Yorkshire **Ravensthorpe railway station, Dewsbury *Ravensthorpe, Northamptonshire *Ravensthorpe, Peterborough in Cambridgeshire *Ravensthorpe, an histor ...

district in the 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 ...

. It grows in sand along drainage lines.

Conservation

''Melaleuca similis'' is listed as " Priority One" 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 ...

, meaning that it is poorly known occurring in only a few locations and is potentially at risk.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q6811088 similis Myrtales of Australia Plants described in 1999 Rosids of Western Australia Endemic flora of Western Australia Taxa named by Lyndley Craven