Melaleuca styphelioides

Shrub or small tree, 3–10(–20) m high; bark papery or hard; branchlets pubescent. Leaves alternate, sessile, ovate to broadly ovate, 4–25 mm long, 2–7 mm wide, often twisted or concave above, apex tapered to a pungent point, margins ciliate, faintly 15–30-veined, oil glands sometimes distinct. Inflorescence a few- to many-flowered dense spike, 1–2 cm long, to c. 2.5 cm wide; axis pubescent, growing on into a leafy shoot. Flowers usually in triads; bracts leaf-like; stamens 12–26 per bundle, white, claw 3–5.5 mm long, free part of filaments c. 4–6 mm long. Capsules 2–3.5 mm long, 2–3 mm wide, sepals somewhat persistent. Flowers Nov.–Jan.