白千层 bai qian ceng

Melaleuca cumingiana Turczaninow, Bull. Soc. Imp. Naturalistes Moscou 20: 164. 1847.

Trees, to 18 m tall. Bark white, thick and soft, peeling. Branchlets grayish white. Leaves alternate, fragrant; petiole very short; leaf blade narrowly elliptic to narrowly oblong, 4-10 × 1-2 cm, leathery, with numerous oil glands, secondary veins 3-5(-7) and parallel to long axis blade, both ends acute. Flowers white, in pseudoterminal spikes to 15 cm; rachis usually with short trichomes. Hypanthium ovate, ca. 3 mm, pubes- cent or glabrous. Sepals 5, rounded, ca. 1 mm. Petals 5, ovate, 2-3 × ca. 3 mm. Stamens ca. 1 cm, in 5 bundles. Style linear, slightly longer than stamens. Capsule subglobose, 5-7 mm in diam. Fl. several times per year.

Cultivated in Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, and Yunnan [Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam].

In FRPS (53(1): 54-55. 1984), this widely cultivated species was treated under the name Melaleuca leucadendra (Linnaeus) Linnaeus (as "M. leucadendron"). Melaleuca cajuputi is the source of the essential oil, cajuput or cadjeput. The typical race, subsp. cajuputi, is distributed in Indonesia and Australia; a third race, subsp. platyphylla Barlow, is distributed in Indonesia (Irian Jaya), Papua New Guinea, and Australia.