Leptospermum nitidum Hook. f.

An evergreen shrub 3 to 20 ft high, bark peeling; young shoots hairy, erect, densely leafy. Leaves oval-lanceolate to oblong, sharply pointed, tapered to the base, 1⁄3 to 3⁄4 in. long, 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 in. wide, shining green and glabrous above, more or less hairy beneath and on the margins; both surfaces are covered with minute oil-glands; stalks very short. Flowers white, reddish inside, 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in. wide, short-stalked and closely packed in the terminal leaf-axils of short shoots. Sepals and calyx-tube silky hairy. Fruits scaly.

Native of Tasmania, where it was discovered in flower as far back as February 1845. H. F. Comber collected it on his Tasmanian journey and described his No. 2128 as ‘a very beautiful dwarf late-flowering shrub 1 to 2 ft high’. His 2139 he recorded as 10 to 20 ft high and his 2153 as 8 to 12 ft. It was exhibited in flower from Nymans at Vincent Square, 16 June 1934.