596 
LI. MYRTACEjE. 
13. MELALEUCA, Linn. 
(Said to be from the trunk being black and the foliage white in some of the 
earlier-known species.) 
(Gymnagathis, Schau.; Asteromyrtus, Schau.) 
Calyx-tube campanulate or urceolate, adnate to the ovary at the base, the free 
part erect contracted or scarcely dilated ; lobes 5, imbricate or open, herbaceous 
or more or less scarious, and then occasionally irregularly confluent. Petals 5, 
orbicular, spreading. Stamens indefinite, much longer than the petals, united in 
5 distinct bundles opposite the petals ; the united part or claw usually flattened, 
from very short and broad to long and linear, the filaments (or free parts) fili- 
form, either pinnately arranged along the margin of the claw, or clustered or 
digitate at the end, or covering also the inner face ; anthers versatile, the cells 
parallel, opening longitudinally. Ovary enclosed in the calyx-tube, inferior or 
semi-inferior, the convex summit villous (except in M. calycina, of W. Austr.) with 
a central depression round the style ; 3-celled, with indefinite ovules in each cell, 
either numerous and closely packed on the outer surface of a peltate placenta or 
few and ascending on a short peltate or 2-fid placenta ; style filiform with a peltate 
capitate or frequently very small stigma. Capsule enclosed in the enlarged and 
hardened calyx, crowned by the cup-shaped or annular free part of the tube, the 
lobes rarely persistent, opening loculicidally at the top in 3 valves, and occa- 
sionally separable from the calyx into 3 cocci. Seeds more or less cuneate, the 
perfect ones usually few, testa thin ; embryo straight or scarcely curved ; coty- 
ledons flat, plano-convex or folded and embracing each other, longer than the 
radicle. — Shrubs or trees. Leaves alternate or in a few species opposite, entire, 
usually coriaceous, flat concave or semiterete, 1, 3 or several nerved, very rarely 
thinner with recurved margins. Flowers red white or yellow, closely sessile and 
solitary within each bract or floral leaf, in heads or spikes, or rarely solitary and 
scattered, the axis of the spike usually growing out during or after the flowering, 
the fruiting spike forming the base of the new branch. Bracts usually scale-like 
and often imbricate in the young spike, but usually deciduous long before flower- 
ing. Bracteoles usually small and deciduous, or sometimes none. 
The genus is probably entirely Australian, for the few supposed species common in the Indian 
Archipelago appear to be varieties of a single one which is also widely dispersed over tropical 
and Eastern Australia. It is also, generally speaking, a well-defined group, readily distinguished 
from Callistemon by the 5-adelphous stamens. The only exceptions are one or two species in 
which the claws of the staminal bundles are so short as to connect the genus with Callistemon, of 
which one species (C. speciosus) has the stamens almost or quite 5-adelphous, but single tran- 
sitionary species appear scarcely to justify the union of very large groups otherwise well 
characterised. — Benth. 
The great similarity of structure throughout the genus prevents the establishing any definite 
subdivisions, the specific distinctions resting chiefly on habit, foliage, and inflorescence, neither 
the opposite leaves of some species, nor even the deciduous calyx-rim of the few Asteromyrti, 
having any other character in common to justify their separation as sections. The following 
series, therefore, although the best I have been able to devise, will be found in many instances 
to pass gradually one into the other. — Benth. 
Series I. Callistemonese. — Flowers large, red or rarely greenish-yellow, in oblong or 
cylindrical dense spikes, glabrous or slightly pubescent, lateral on the old wood or forming the base 
of leafy branches. Calyx broad at the base. Stamens above kin. long (not exceeding Jin. in any 
other series). 
(The inflorescence and the length of the stamens give many of the species of this series the 
aspect of Callistemon, but the stamens are always very distinctly 5-adelphous. — Benth.) 
Leaves opposite, lanceolate or oblong, with recurved margins and pro- 
minent midrib, § to 1 Jin. long. Staminal claws long I. M. hypericifolia. 
Series II. Decussatse. — Glabrous bushy shrubs. Leaves opposite, small flat or concave, 
nerveless or 1 or 3- nerved . Flowers pink or rarely white, in small heads or clusters along the 
previous year's stems, or forming short loose spikes at the base of the neu. shoot already grown out 
before the flower expands. Bhachis and calyx glabrous. 
