Melaleuca Species Identification Help

[AidanF]

Hi all,

I recently acquired the melaleuca pictured below from a local sale. Wondering if any experts on here might be able to help me identify what type of melaleuca I'm dealing with. I've included a number of detail shots below. Not flowering yet so sadly no info on flower assistance to go off.

As an aside, if anyone has any advice for how to manage the large coiled roots sticking up from the soil that would be wonderful. I believe it may have been kept in a very small container for far too long before I obtained it as the large roots are quite coiled near the surface. I'm letting it rebuild the rest of it's root mass for now.

[shibui]

It could help if you give us a location, Aiden. Mentioning it is from a local sale but not giving any clues to where that is doesn't help at all.

Great photos of all the other useful characteristics but, unfortunately, many of the mels look similar. It is likely you'll have to wait for flowers to get an accurate ID.

Coiled roots is a common feature as natives tend to start out in small tubes and get potted on into increasing larger pots as they grow. Many people are too frightened to uncoil the roots at the first transplant and it gets increasingly difficult as the trees grow.

You could check under the coiled roots. If there are better roots below or among it is possible to just remove the worst roots and let the better ones take over.
Layering should be an option for most mel sp. Grow a new set of roots above the current base and then chop the existing roots off completely when teh new lateral roots have grown at the layer. Might take a year or 2 but often the best option.
Some species can take radical root reduction so the coiled roots can be chopped all in one go but I'd be reluctant without knowing the sp as there's a huge difference in tolerance to root pruning between mel species.
You could try a longer term strategy and chop 1 or 2 roots each year. Plant a bit deeper and hope that new roots grow from the cut stumps. As those develop a bit chop some more of the coiled roots.

[dansai]

As you rightly suggest, and shibui mentioned too, the coiled roots are from being in too small a container for too long. Unfortunately very common in nursery material even though there are well documented best practices to avoid this. Some nurseries manage it well, but alas others not so much.

Like shibui has said, you can remove one or 2, or possibly all the coiled roots, if you have decent ones below to work with. Depends on where they come from, and how much they are supporting the tree. I avoid older nursery material now for this reason. I prefer to get younger stock, usually tube stock, and am pretty ruthless with my first repot and root trim. If it doesn't survive I haven't lost much. If not done sooner the later is far more difficult to correct.

There are some exceptions where plants have been repotted regularly, or they produce fine roots easily from the base where I have had success with older material undergoing heavy root correcting where it hasn't had that before.

Recently I acquired some plants, mostly Melaleucas, that had potentially interesting growth characteristics. They were in 140mm pots, young and didn't have much in the way of structure. All had shocking, coiled, tangled, totally crap root systems. Rather than deal with the roots I put a bit of wire about 4-5 cm above the current roots around the trunk fairly tightly, removed the bottom 1/3 or so of roots and planted deeply into a slightly bigger container so the wire was below the rim of the pot and filled with quality potting mix. Effectively attempting a ground layer.

My hope is for a bunch of roots forming just above the wire as in cuts in, with the aim of removing everything, which will include the old roots, below the wire once I have good roots above it. It adds a year or so to getting the tree ready for basic work. I only did light trimming of long shoots at the time. Next spring I hope to repot onto the goos roots. I may do some initial styling this autumn, otherwise wait until the following autumn.

[AidanF]

It could help if you give us a location, Aiden. Mentioning it is from a local sale but not giving any clues to where that is doesn't help at all.

I'm based in Melbourne and this was purchased from the for sale stock at a Victorian bonsai club exhibition. That said there's nothing to suggest this is specifically a Victorian native species (it's not collected material), so I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Thanks for the assessment on the species. So many do look exactly the same. I'll wait and reassess next year if it flowers.

Regarding the roots, unfortunately it had almost no roots below those coiled roots, which are so thick to have almost fused together. I suspect it might have been reported from a tiny nursery container right before sale. I've been encouraging it to vigorously grow and am not pruning it back at all this year in order to rebuild the root mass emerging from the base of the trunk. My hope is to come back in spring and remove the two thick and coiling surface roots. That said, I am strongly considering ground layering if this strategy doesn't yield good results.

[shibui]

I'm based in Melbourne and this was purchased from the for sale stock at a Victorian bonsai club exhibition. That said there's nothing to suggest this is specifically a Victorian native species (it's not collected material), so I'm not sure what you mean by this.

I am aware that location won't actually confirm the species but it does reduce some chances and increase others. If you were in WA there's a bunch of species that re common there but very uncommon over this side and vice versa.
Until we see flowers there's really only possibilities.

M. lanceolata is frequently grown in Vic and both leaves and bark look close for that species.