Leptospermum lanigerum
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Leptospermum lanigerum' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Synonyms
- Philadelphus laniger Aiton
- Leptospermum pubescens Lam.
Editorial Note
Bean treated the later-flowering Leptospermum cunninghamii Schauer (= L. myrtifolium Sieber ex DC.) as included within L. lanigerum, an interpretation since rejected (Bean himself remarked that it was difficult ‘to believe that these two leptospermums belong to the same species’). Bean’s account of these taxa has been split into separate entries and edited to accord with current thinking, but the extent of changes in nomenclature – and indeed in the wider taxonomy of Myrtaceae – makes it difficult at times to reconcile Bean’s account of the family with modern treatments. A full, revised account of the hardy Myrtaceae genera will be provided when funding is available. If you would like to sponsor the work please write to editor@treesandshrubsonline.org.
An evergreen shrub or small tree of erect habit, the slender twigs clothed with outstanding pale hairs. Leaves alternate, set about ten or twelve to the inch, obovate-oblong or oval, abruptly pointed, variable in size but usually 1⁄3 to 1⁄2 in. (occasionally 3⁄4 in.) long, about 1⁄8 in. wide, more or less silky, especially beneath, but sometimes glabrous and glossy green above. Flowers white, borne along or at the ends of leafy side growths; they are about 1⁄2 in. wide, the centre filled with a cluster of twenty to thirty stamens. Receptacle (calyx-tube) and sepals densely white-villous, the hairs appressed or spreading; sepals long-triangular and pointed or rounded-acuminate. Seed-vessel woody, nearly globose, 1⁄4 to 1⁄3 in. wide.
Native to Australia and Tasmania, introduced in 1774. This species seems to be hardier than the commoner L. scoparium. It was grown on a south wall at Kew and the winter of 1928–29, which very much injured L. scoparium, left it unaffected; it succumbed, however, during the hard winter of 1946–47. As long ago as 1879, a writer in the Gardeners’ Chronicle remarked on its hardiness against a wall in Lancashire. It is quite an attractive, very leafy evergreen, flowering from June onwards. It is variable in the size and silkiness of its leaves, also in the size of its flowers, which in Loddiges’ Cabinet, t. 1192, are depicted as 1 in. wide.
The hairs on the calyx-tube are much longer than in [L. cunninghamii], and the sepals are longer, concealing the petals even in the late bud-stage, and the leaves are relatively narrower, up to 3⁄4 in. long, glossy and tinged with purple when young. It is also earlier flowering by two or three weeks This is in cultivation as typical L. lanigerum.
[Bean mentions that Lord Talbot de Malahide ‘has in his garden an example of L. lanigerum from Tasmania, collected in the wild, [ ] very distinct in having the leaves dark green and almost glabrous above; this is of fastigiate habit’; it is unclear to which species this plant should be referred.]
