Melaleuca (Tea Tree Oil) Essential Oil
Melaleuca is a genus of plants
|
Melaleuca |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 A Melbourne Paperbark |
||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Species | ||||||||||||
|
236 |
Melaleuca are shrubs and trees growing (depending on species) to 2–30 m tall, with flaky, exfoliating bark. The leaves are evergreen, alternately arranged, ovate to lanceolate, 1-25 cm long and 0.5-7 cm broad, with an entire margin, dark green to grey-green in colour. The flowers are produced in dense clusters along the stems, each flower with fine small petals and a tight bundle of stamens; flower colour varies from white to pink, red, pale yellow or greenish. The fruit is a small capsule containing numerous minute seeds.
The melaleucas are closely related to callistemons: the main difference between the genera is that the stamens are generally free in Callistemon but grouped into bundles in Melaleuca.
In the wild, melaleucas are generally found in open forest, woodland or shrubland, particularly along watercourses and the edges of swamps.
Common names of many Australasian genera are inaccurate and unhelpful. In consequence, the best-accepted common name for Melaleuca is simply melaleuca; however most of the larger species are also known as paperbarks, and the smaller types as honey myrtles. Some melaleucas are used in the manufacture of an essential oil called tea tree oil and called “tea trees”, which is confusing, as “tea tree” has also been used for several other plants, including Leptospermum, a related and superficially similar-looking genus.
In Australia, Melaleuca species are sometimes used as food plants by the larvae of hepialid moths of the genus Aenetus. These burrow horizontally into the trunk then vertically down.
Scientific studies have shown that tea tree oil made from Melaleuca alternifolia is a highly effective topical antibacterial and antifungal, although it may be toxic when ingested internally in large doses or by children. In rare cases, topical products can be absorbed by the skin and result in toxicity.
Melaleucas are popular garden plants, both in Australia and other tropical areas worldwide. In Hawaii and the Florida everglades, Melaleuca quinquenervia has become a serious invasive weed.
Melaleuca quinquenervia foliage and fruit capsules
Melaleuca quinquenervia bark showing the papery exfoliation from which the common name ’paperbark’ derives
A “Paperbark” in Melbourne
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Melaleuca”.