Hillock Bush

Melaleuca hypericifolia belongs to the same broad paperbark and honey-myrtle clan that gave the world tea tree oil, though this particular species has traditionally been valued far more for its beauty and its welcome to wildlife than for the medicine chest. Colonial-era gardeners in New South Wales prized it for the way its crimson flower spikes lit up low, swampy ground where little else would bloom, and by the twentieth century it had become a familiar anchor plant in native gardens raised for honeyeaters and other nectar feeders. Like its paperbark cousins, its thin, papery bark has long been noticed and handled by people living close to the land, though the species itself has no well-documented history as a household remedy the way tea tree or cajuput do.