Leptospermum

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Leptospermum' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/leptospermum/). Accessed 2025-04-28.

Family

Myrtaceae

Species in genus

Glossary

alternate: Attached singly along the axis not in pairs or whorls.
entire: With an unbroken margin.

References

There are no active references in this article.

Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Leptospermum' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/leptospermum/). Accessed 2025-04-28.

Leptospermum lanigerum in full flower at the San Francisco Botanical Garden, 27 May 2023. Image Tom Christian.

A genus of some thirty species of evergreen, small trees or shrubs mostly natives of Australia but found also in New Zealand, New Caledonia, and the Malay Archipelago. The leaves are small, alternate, entire. Flowers solitary or in pairs or threes; petals five, spreading; stamens numerous; seed-vessel woody. Provided they are grown in a climate sufficiently mild, they are of easy cultivation, but none is genuinely hardy in the average climate of Britain, Leptospermum is from the Greek and refers to the small seeds.

Leptospermum scoparium Schilling 2824, collected in subalpine rainforest on Mt Barrow, Tasmania, in 1984, long cultivated at and distributed from Wakehurst (Yorkshire Arboretum, June 2022). Image John Grimshaw.

Leptospermum nitidum B. Halliwell 6179, collected in Tasmania in 1984 (Yorkshire Arboretum, July 2022). Image John Grimshaw.

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