II 
No. 226. 
Callistemon viminalis (Solander) Cheel. 
Large or Drooping Bottle-brush. 
(Family MYRTACEvE.) 
The credit of working out this npecies balongs to Mr. Cheel. I have arranged 
the matter so as to bring it into the general scheme of this work, and that, together 
with a few minor additions, has received the concurrence of Mr. Cheel. 
Botanical description. - Genus, Callistemon, R. Brown, in Botanical Ref/ister t. 393 
(1819). 
Calyx-tube ovoid, campanulate or uroaolate, adnato to the ovary at tho base, the free part erect 
or contracted ; lobes 5, imhricat?, more or less scarious, deciduous. Petals 5, orbicular, spreading, 
longer than the ealyx-lob.-H. titauieiu nuich longer than the pjtals, indefinite, usually in several series, 
free or very rarely collected in clusters or very shortly united opposite the petals, or all very shortly 
uYted in a continuous ring ; anthem versatile, the cells parallel, opening longitudinally. Ovary villous 
on the top, usually convex, with a slight depression round the style, 3 or 4-celled, with very numerous 
ovules in each call, horizontal or ascending and covering a peltate placenta; style filiform with a small 
terminal often scarcely conspicuous stigma. Fruiting-eafyx more or less hardened and enlarged, with a 
truncate orifice ; capsule enclosed in and more or less adnate to the calyx, opening looulioidally. Seeds 
linear or linear-cumate, tcnta thin; cotyledons plano-convex, longer than the radicle. Tall shrubs or 
email trees. Lmoes scattered, terete, linear or lanceolate, entire, coriaceous, nerveless or with a prominent 
midrib and nerve-like margins and pinnate veins. Flowers showy, palo yellow or crimson, in dense oblong 
or cylindrical spikes, at first terminal, but the axis very soon growing out into a leafy shoot, the lower 
leaves of the new shoot usually reduced to dry very deciduous scales, each flower closely sessile or slightly 
immersed in the woody rhachis. Bracts none or dry and deciduous, rarely here and there more persistent 
and leaf -like. Stamens in most species J to t inch long or even more. 
The genus is confined to Australia. As originally observed by R. Brown, it passes gradually into 
Melakuca, with which F. Mueller proposes to reunite it, the C. speciosuin being, as it were, intermediate 
batween the two. On the other hand, it is as closely connected with Kunsca through K. Baxteri, and 
that giinus again passes into LvjitospcnHum. Yet the great majority of species of each of the four groups 
are separated by characters so marked and prominent that it appears more convenient to retain the four 
genera as geiv-rully admitted. 
The species of Callisletnon, as thus limited, have a remarkable similarity ir their floral characters, 
scarcely differing but in the breadth and consistence of their leaves and in the length and colour of tho 
stamens. They might, indeed, almost be considered as varieties of one species. (Bontkam in 
H. Fl. iii, 118.) 

