AusBonsai

Can anyone offer a botanic and or common name for this tree?

Identification solved

by melaquin

melaleuca linearfolia.

Gday John!

My best guess would be a Melaleuca of some description. Pup's your man when it comes to Melaleucas.

Nice ramification, by the way!

Good luck.

Fly.

I'll second that, looks like a Mel for sure. Is the new growth reddish in colour?

Yes it has redish new growth and when you rub the needles it smells like lemon - so I was thinking Lemon scented T Tree. You see lots of them used by Councils up here around roundabouts and they are hedged to about 60cm.

What is the bark like? Papery or rough?

Hi. I have a Lemon scented Tea Tree but it doesn't look like that.

The bark is definately similar to the paper bark trees. Still looking for identification - where's Pup when you need him?

Yours in Bonsai
Jon

Read up on "Melaleuca Claret Tops". The redish new growth, the nice ramification as well as the small leaves matches my Claret Tops. Good luck!

JayC

Hi JayC, Thanks for the heads up. I googled Claret tops but I don't think that it is this. I have had the tree for several years and it has not flowered yet (not saying that it won't) and my leaves are smaller, opposing and prone to leaf fall if let dry out for any period of time.

Yours in Bonsai
Jon

Jon,
Be a sweetie and let us have a close up of the foliage... against a plain ground please.
I am NO expert and I am chasing ID of one of my new trees [especially after one bare trunk grows some foliage] but I think from that rather distant photo, it might [and I do stress 'MIGHT'] be either squarrosa or styphelioides. If the foliage is prickly [and you'll know if it is] it is the styphelioides, the prickly leaf melaleuca. The squarrosa is the scented leaf paperbark.

But I am only learning the names of the melas I have and that's not many in the range of these trees. I am far from an authority.
Cheers MelaQuin

The photo is not clear but I would rule out Leptospernum petersonii [lemon scented tea tree]. The tea tree has soft tan flaky bark, a longer internode and long slender leaves. Also, the trunk colour and leaf colours are not right for your specimen. So let's stick with meleleucas.
MelaQuin 15/11/08

Well Melaquin here are the close ups you asked for.
Can anyone help?

Yours in Bonsai
Jon

Photos much better but I'm still having a problem but that's not really a problem. I think it is Melaleuca linearfolia [Snow in Summer]. To be linearfolia the leaves must come off the branch in pairs and I can't quite make it out but you can. If they are alternate than it could be Melaleuca alternifolia but the bark doesn't ring true with the alternifolia. I just picked up a 6' linearifolia [now 20 cm] and the bark is papery as is yours. My alternifolia is more textured, harder, not papery. Hope this helps. Its a nice tree... maybe a bit too tall. Maybe. Shorter would emphasise the trunk and make the tree look older. But it's a nice tree. Does this little beast flower??? Now's the time if it does and I gather from the photos that it hasn't yet. But that could be from pruning as well.
Ciao - MelaQuin

Jon, it's MelaQuin back again... Mate, get some wire and put some movement in the slender left branch. You can still do it now but you won't be able to later and it is too straight for the gentleness of the tree. And melaleuca is as melauca does and, if I see correctly, you [or rather, the tree] has an odd root off to the right. Come repotting time you should consider doing away with that. It's direction is not in tune with your tree and will only get worse with age. Removal as soon as possible is the best way. I have a M revolution gold with a similar odd angle root much worse than yours and now that the tree has established and recovered from years of neglect, I will remove it at the next repot. But go it has to and I rather feel your's does as well. Only other option is to cover it with soil or moss and that won't be effective if the root increases in size. When I murder the rev-gold root, if I feel the tree might go into shock I will put it in a water tray until new growth shows that the tree is okay. Problem with water trays and paperbarks is that the paperbark nebari gets mossy but that's better than a dead tree.

Unfortunately a hell of a lot of Melaleucas have white fluffy flowers. Looking at the foliage as I see it as possibly M, groveana.
A shrub or small tree. with papery fibrous bark narrow elliptical leaves mostly with a point White flowers it is a native to the NSW Queensland border region. It grows mainly in heath situations.
It could also be Linariifolia the Claret tops is a hybrid from linariifolia. Having said all that a positive ID is still probably not 100% I use as a reference a book by John W, Wrigley and Murray Fagg called Bottlebrushes Paperbarks and Leptospermums & all other plants in the Leptospermum alliance.
It was published by Angus and Robertson. ISBN 0 207 16867 9. It is out of print so you will have to search but it is worth it.
I hope I have helped. With well over 200 and counting Melaleucas are one of the biggest in the Myrtales family. They also self hybridise more than most. If you can get a macro of the foliage it might help. Pup