''Melaleuca stramentosa'' 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 se ...

of Western Australia. It is a small, bushy shrub similar to ''

Melaleuca similis ''Melaleuca similis'' is a plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to the south west of Western Australia. It is a small shrub, similar to '' Melaleuca stramentosa'' with its narrow, almost cylindrical leaves and heads of pink to ...

'' with its cylindrical leaves and heads of pink to purple flowers but differs in have matted, woolly hairs around the flowers and on the young leaves.

Description

''Melaleuca stramentosa'' is a densely-foliaged shrub sometimes growing to tall. Its young growth is covered with matted, silky or woolly hairs. The leaves are arranged alternately and are long, wide, linear to very narrow egg-shaped and semi-circular to almost circular in cross section. The flowers are a shade of pink to purple and are arranged in heads on the ends of branches which continue to grow after flowering and sometimes also in the upper leaf axils. The heads are up to in diameter with up to 4 groups of flowers in threes. The petals are long and fall off as the flower matures. The outer surface of the floral cup (the hypanthium) is hairy and there are five bundles of stamens around the flower, each with 4 to 6 stamens. Flowering occurs mainly in October and is followed by fruit which are woody, cylindrical capsules, wide and long, in irregular, loose clusters along the stems.

Taxonomy and naming

''Melaleuca stramentosa'' was first formally described in 1999 by Lyndley Craven in '' Australian Systematic Botany'' from a specimen collected near

Jerdacuttup Jerdacuttup is a small town in Western Australia east-south-east of Perth between Ravensthorpe and Hopetoun in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia. At the 2006 census, Jerdacuttup had a population of six. John Forrest ex ...

. 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 ...

(''stramentosa'') is derived from the Latin word ''stramen'' meaning "straw" or "litter" referring to the silky or woolly hairs seen on the young growth of this species.

Distribution and habitat

This melaleuca 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

biogeographic region An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of l ...

where it grows in sand or gravel in heath on plains.

Conservation

''Melaleuca stramentosa'' is classified 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=Q6811098 stramentosa Plants described in 1999 Endemic flora of Western Australia Taxa named by Lyndley Craven