Family: Myrtle (Myrtaceae)

Description: Melaleuca is an introduced Austrailian tree, it grows to about 80 feet tall. Its bark is whitish, spongy, peeling, and in many layers. Its leaves are to 5 inches long, alternate, evergreen, simple, short-stalked, narrowly elliptic. Leaf veins are more or less parallel. Melaleuca's white flowers are small and crowded in bottlebrush-like spikes at branch tips. The fruit are short, cylindric or squarish, woody capsules with many tiny seeds.

Found: Swamps and low woodlands of central and south Florida