''Melaleuca faucicola'' commonly known as desert 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 the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. (Some Australian state herbaria continue to use the name ''Callistemon pauciflorus''.) It is a shrub or small tree growing only in protected gorges in the ranges of

Central Australia Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Australia. In its narrowest sense it describes a region that is limited to the town of Alice Springs and ...

such as the Petermann Ranges and has red, cream or white spikes of flowers.

Description

''Melaleuca faucicola'' is a shrub growing to tall with hard, fissured bark. Its leaves are arranged alternately and are long, wide, flat, linear to lance-shaped, with a mid-vein, 16 to 20 lateral veins and distinct oil glands. The flowers red, pink, cream or white. They are arranged in spikes on the ends of branches that continue to grow after flowering and also on the sides of the branches. The spikes are up to in diameter with 7 to 17 individual flowers. The petals are long and fall off as the flower ages. There are 52 to 71

stamen The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filament ...

s in each flower, some of which are joined in bundles. Flowering occurs at unpredictable times throughout the year and is followed by fruit that are woody capsules, long.

Taxonomy and naming

''Melaleuca faucicola'' was named 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 ...

''. It had previously been known as ''Callistemon pauciflorus'' since

Roger David Spencer Roger David Spencer (born 6 October 1945) is a British-Australian horticultural botanist who was born at Alfreton, Derbyshire. He has an honours degree in botany from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, a master's degree and doctorate fr ...

and Peter F. Lumley first formally described it in 1986 in '' Muelleria'' from a specimen collected from the "

Serpentine Gorge Serpentine Gorge is one of the gorges in the West MacDonnell Ranges in Australia's Northern Territory. It is located approximately 100 kilometres west of Alice Springs along the Larapinta Trail. It comprises two gorges created by a south flowin ...

in the Heavitree Range". 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 ...

(''faucicola'') is from the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

''faux'' meaning “throat”, hence "gorge", and ''-cola'' meaning "dweller in", referring to the habitat of this species, being in gorge country. ''Callistemon pauciflorus'' is regarded as a synonym of ''Melaleuca faucicola'' by the

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,10 ...

Distribution and habitat

This melaleuca occurs in the

Central Ranges Central Ranges (code CER) is an Australian bioregion, with an area of 101,640.44 square kilometres (39,244 sq mi) spreading across two states and one territory: South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory.MacDonnell Ranges The MacDonnell Ranges, or Tjoritja in Arrernte language, Arrernte, is a mountain range located in southern Northern Territory. MacDonnell Ranges is also the name given to an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australia ...

and Petermann Ranges in the Northern Territory, where it grows near waterholes in protected sandstone gorges.

Conservation status

''Melaleuca faucicola'' is classified as "near threatened" in terms of the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q20720059

faucicola ''Faucicola'' is a genus of bacteria which belongs to the class Gammaproteobacteria with one known species ('' Faucicola mancuniensis''). ''Faucicola mancuniensis'' has been isolated from a human oropharynx The pharynx (: pharynges) is the pa ...

Flora of Queensland Plants described in 1986 Taxa named by Lyndley Craven