''Melaleuca hemisticta'', commonly known as Mount Wheeler bottlebrush, is a plant in the myrtle

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

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 ...

and is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to coastal areas of

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

. (Some Australian state

herbaria A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

continue to use the name ''Callistemon hemistictus''.) It is a tall, bushy shrub with dark green leaves and red flowers spikes tipped with yellow.

Description

''Melaleuca hemisticta'' is a shrub growing to tall with grey, papery or fibrous bark. Its leaves are arranged alternately and are long, wide, flat, mostly narrow egg-shaped with a mid-vein and 15 to 30 branching veins. The flowers are arranged in spikes on the ends of branches which continue to grow after flowering and sometimes on the sides of the branches. The spikes are in diameter with 10 to 50 individual flowers. The petals are long and fall off as the flower ages. There are 35-53 stamens in each flower with red filaments and yellow anthers. Flowering occurs from March to September and is followed by fruit which are woody capsules, long.

Taxonomy and naming

''Melaleuca hemisticta'' was first formally described in 2006 by

Lyndley Craven Lyndley Alan Craven (3 September 1945 – 11 July 2014) was a botanist who became the Principal Research Scientist of the Australian National Herbarium. Lyndley ("Lyn") Craven worked for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organ ...

in ''

Novon The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropist Henry Shaw. Its herbarium, with more than 6.6 million s ...

''. The

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

(''hemisticta'') is from

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

meaning "half" and "spotted", referring to the oil glands in the leaves being only in the lower half of the leaf. ''Callistemon hemistictus'' is regarded as a synonym of ''Melaleuca hemisticta'' by the

Plants of the World Online Plants of the World Online (POWO) is an online taxonomic database published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. History Following the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew launched Plants of the World Online i ...

Distribution and habitat

''Melaleuca hemisticta'' occurs in coastal Queensland in and between the Bowen and

Bundaberg Bundaberg () is the major regional city in the Wide Bay-Burnett region of the state of Queensland, Australia. It is the List of cities in Australia by population, ninth largest city in the state. The Bundaberg central business district is situa ...

regions, on nearby islands and on Mount Stewart near

Townsville The City of Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 201,313 as of 2024, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland and Northern Australia (specifically, the parts of Australia north of ...

, where it grows in a range of habitats but often on the sides of cliffs.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17595982 hemisticta Flora of Queensland Plants described in 2006 Taxa named by Lyndley Craven