Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations
Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.
Native range 5 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Northern Territory | NTA | AUSTRALASIA |
| Queensland | QLD | |
| Western Australia | WAU | |
| Maluku | MOL | ASIA-TROPICAL |
| New Guinea | NWG |
Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.
Where it actually grows measured, from 277 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 11.4 °C | 16.5 °C | 23.7 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 27.3 °C | 29.6 °C | 36.7 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 732 mm | 1,655 mm | 3,356 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 6 mm | 98 mm | 247 mm |
It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 277 research-grade observations of Melaleuca leucadendra that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.
This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.
Also published as 15 synonyms
A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.
- Cajuputi leucadendron (L.) A.Lyons
- Kajuputi leucadendron (L.) Farw.
- Leptospermum leucodendron (L.) J.R.Forst. & G.Forst.
- Meladendron leucocladum St.-Lag.
- Melaleuca amboinensis Gand.
- Melaleuca leucadendra var. angusta C.Rivière
- Melaleuca leucadendra var. cunninghamii F.M.Bailey
- Melaleuca leucadendra var. lancifolia F.M.Bailey
- Melaleuca leucadendra var. mimosoides (A.Cunn. ex S.Schauer) Cheel
- Melaleuca mimosoides A.Cunn. ex S.Schauer
- Melaleuca rigida Roxb.
- Metrosideros coriacea Salisb.
- Myrtus alba Noronha
- Myrtus leucadendra L.
- Myrtus saligna Burm.f.
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.
We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.