1. LEPTOSPERMUM, Forst.
Shrubs or small trees, glabrous or silky-pubescent. Leaves small, alternate, entire. Flowers solitary or 2–3 together, axillary or at the ends of the branchlets, often polygamous. Calyx-tube campanulate or turbinate, adnate to the ovary below; lobes 5. Petals 5, spreading. Stamens numerous, free, in a single series; anthers versatile. Ovary inferior or half-superior, enclosed in the calyx-tube, 5- or more-celled, rarely 3–4-celled; style filiform; stigma capitate or peltate. Capsule woody or coriaceous, exceeding the calyx-tube or altogether included in it, opening loculicidally at the top. Seeds numerous in each cell, but most of them sterile, pendulous, linear or angular.
A genus of about 28 species, almost wholly Australian; a few only in New Zealand, New Caledonia, and the Malay Archipelago. One of the New Zealand species is also found in Australia, the remaining two are endemic.
| Leaves pungent. Flowers ⅓–½ in. diam., solitary. Calyx-lobes deciduous. Capsule half-exserted | 1. L. scoparium. |
| Leaves not pungent. Flowers 15 in. diam., usually fascicled. Calyx-lobes persistent. Capsule included in the calyx-tube | 2. L. ericoides. |
| Leaves not pungent, white with silky hairs. Flowers ¼ in. diam. Calyx-lobes persistent. Capsule deeply sunk within the calyx-tube | 3. L. Sinclairii. |
1. L. scoparium, Forst. Char. Gen. 72, t. 36.—A shrub or small tree, extremely variable in size, usually 6–18 ft. high, but sometimes dwarfed to a foot or two, occasionally reaching 20–25 ft. with a trunk 12–18 in. diam.; branches fastigiate or spreading; branchlets and young leaves silky. Leaves 16–12 in. long, variable in shape, linear or linear-lanceolate to broadly ovate, sessile, rigid, concave, acute and pungent-pointed, veinless, dotted, erect or spreading, rarely recurved. Flowers sessile, solitary, axillary or terminating the branchlets, ¼–½ in. diam. Calyx-tube broadly turbinate; lobes orbicular, deciduous. Petals orbicular, slightly clawed. Capsule woody, persistent, half sunk in the calyx-tube, which forms a rim round it, the free portion 5-valved.—A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 337; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 553; Raoul, Choix, 49; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 69; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 69; Kirk, Forest Fl. t. 117; Students' Fl. 157.
Var. myrtifolium, Hook. f. l.c.—Leaves ovate, spreading or recurved.
Var. parvum, Kirk, Students' Fl. 158.—1–3 ft. high. Leaves 18 in. long, ovate, spreading. Flowers smaller, 18–16 in.
Var. prostratum, Hook. f. l.c.—Small, often prostrate, branches ascending at the tips. Leaves ovate or almost orbicular, recurved. A mountain form.
North and South Islands, Stewart Island, Chatham Islands: Abundant throughout, ascending to 3500ft. Manuka; Tea-tree. October–April. Also plentiful in Australia and Tasmania.