Callistemon cv. ‘King’s Park Special’ (Bottle brush)

Bottlebrush is a native of Australia. This hybrid, ‘King’s Park Special,’ is a sterile hybrid developed to avoid the production of seed heads that some growers consider unsightly. (Personally I think they look sort of cool.) It does not occur in the wild.

Leaves: Lanceolate to narrow-elliptic leaves are up to 3″ (7.6 cm) long, coppery in color at first before maturing to medium green. Leaves have a lemony scent when bruised.

Flowers: Flowerheads are bottlebrush-shaped cylinders composed of soft filaments. These filaments are actually the stamens of the flowers; the flowers themselves are fused together in a mass along the center.

Fruits: Except for the lack of seed production, this hybrid looks like its wild forebears Callistemon citrinus × C. viminalis. (The ‘×’ means “crossed with.”)

Kingdom	Plantae	Plants, but not fungi, lichens, or algae (from Stearn's Botanical Latin)
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta	Vascular plants—plants with a “circulatory system” for delivering water and nutrients
Division	Magnoliophyta	Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms
Class	Magnoliopsida	Dicotyledons—plants with two initial seed leaves
Subclass	Rosidae	Roses, legumes, proteas, dogwoods, hydrangeas, mistletoes, euphorbias, grapes, many more
Order	Myrtales	Includes myrtles, leadwoods, loosestrifes, pomegranates, evening primroses, many others
Family	Myrtaceae	Myrtle family, include myrtle, clove, guava, feijoa, allspice, and eucalyptus
Genus	Callistemon	From the Greek kalli or kallos, “beautiful,” and stemon, a stamen, in reference to the extraordinary beauty of the flowers of this genus

About plant names...

Range: Zones 9-10:

About this map...

Callistemon cv. ‘King’s Park Special’ description by Thomas H. Kent, not updated.