Photo of Plantae: Prickly-leaved Tea Tree (species: Melaleuca styphelioides)

Prickly-leaved Tea Tree (Melaleuca styphelioides)

© Tony Rodd

Appin, New South Wales. One of the 'paperbark' Melaleucas, this species can make a tree up to 15 m tall, with shapely conical crown and leaves with slightly prickly points. Not as floriferous as some of the other paperbarks, hardly worth growing for its flowers. A common understorey tree in coastal swamp forest that is only occasionally inundated, it also occurs at altitudes up to almost 1000 m, in shallow moist gullies of the tablelands.

Photo taken on 13 Dec 2006