Plants for Special Places#2

PLANTS FOR SPECIAL PLACES
2. Partial Sun and Moist

CALLISTEMON PALLIDUS Myrtaceae Lemon Bottlebrush

A shrub which is usually upright with pale bark and large bottlebrush flowers, creamy-yellow to lemon-green in colour. The leaves are about 5 cm long and hard with a clear midrib. There are obvious dots in the leaf which are the glands that give off a typical eucalyptus-like smell when crushed. The fruit is a woody capsule which persists in spikes along the smaller branches.
Flowering period: Late spring and early summer.
Cultivation: easily grown from seed. May be pruned after flowering. Adaptable in the garden.
Found in all eastern states of Australia.

CALLISTEMON VIRIDIFLORUS Myrtaceae
Prickly Bottlebrush

Upright, small to medium compact shrub;
H. 0.5-2 m; W.0.5-1 m. Leaves dark green,
small, crowded, lanceolate 2-4 cm and sharply pointed. Flowers yellow to green arranged into a bottlebrush 4-6 cm long. Flowering early summer.
Fruit small woody capsules clustered along
the stem, which contain many reddish dust-like seeds. Capsules may remain on the plant for many years with the seeds still viable.

Habitat - locally common in wet places in mountain areas or at lower elevations where frost and cold air drainage occurs.

Cultivation - requires constantly moist but well drained soil in partial sun.
Propagate from seed or cuttings.

Callistemons are available in many original and cultivar forms. They are hardy, and attract both the birds and the bees! Unlike many natives, callistemons like richer soils making them easier to include in the more exotic gardens. Prune by snipping off immediately below the spent flower heads, which will keep them healthy and fairly compact.

Callistemon spp.

MELALEUCA GIBBOSA Myrtaceae
Small-leaved Melaleuca

Shrub 1-2 m, dense and bushy with numerous slender branches. Leaves pale to grey-green, small 2-6 mm long, opposite, overlapping in 4 rows, rather thick. Flowers mauve, sessile in small dense oblong spikes 1.5 cm long with conspicuous long stamens arranged in 5 groups opposite the petals. Fruits woody, sessile, in cylindrical spikes, the branches continue to grow so that old fruits encircle the stem. Seeds very fine, like short hairs.

Flowering sparsely throughout the year but main flowering in spring. Habitat: wet heathlands, swamps and scrub from sea level to approximately 1500 m elevation.
Cultivation: good garden plant suitable as a low windbreak. Frost hardy. Prefers full to dappled sun and moist well-drained soil. Propagate from seed or cuttings. Tas. Vic. SA.

SCLERANTHUS BIFLORUS Caryophyllaceae
Twinflower knawel

This bright green cushion plant grows well on sandy soils in woodlands, but requires full sun and and ample moisture to retain its compact shape. Leaves about 4 mm long, crowded, narrow-linear with fine tips. Minute green flowers with one stamen, always in pairs on a short stalk which rises above the cushion in the fruiting stage. In garden conditions will spread carpet-like around adjacent rocks.

SCLERANTHUS DIANDER Caryophyllaceae
Tufted knawel

Diander has two stamens and has a somewhat woody base, tufted with many branches and forms loose untidy clumps. Pale greenish flowers in dense clusters.
Tas. Vic. NSW. ACT. Qld and New Zealand

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