Melaleuca incana

Melaleuca incana is a large shrub, potentially reaching 5 metres, spreading to several metres wide (sometimes wider than tall), with arching-weeping foliage.

It is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia, growing close to the west and south coasts and to about 150 km inland, from as far east as a disjunct occurrence between Esperance and Cape Arid National Park; then occurring further west from Albany northwards and westwards to Augusta, commonly north to Perth, east to Narrogin, to as far north as Lesueur National Park.

It grows naturally on moist sandy to sandy clay flats and depressions, in heathland and shrubland.

Melaleuca spp. can present with simple and alternate or opposite leaves. In this species, leaves are opposite to whorled, often in 3s or 4s along stems, to 17 mm long and around 4 mm wide, linear to elliptic and tapering to a point; mid-green in colour. The new growth is covered in grey hairs – an attractive feature.

In Melaleuca species, flowers are usually arranged in spikes or heads. Within the head or spike, the flowers are often in groups of two or three. Flowers have five sepals (sometimes fused into a ring of tissue) and five petals which are typically small and do not persist on the flower for long.
Like many other Myrtaceae genera, the flowers are conspicuously staminate with each flower having many stamens surrounding one carpel. The stamens are typically fused into five separate bundles (staminal claws) which each bundle sitting opposite a petal (a generally useful identifying feature for the genus to distinguish it from Callistemon). Melaleuca flowers do not have pedicels (sessile).

In this species, up to 60 staminate flowers are arranged in spikes to 30 mm long by 15 mm wide, usually white to cream to yellow in colour; each flower about 4 mm wide by 20 mm long; produced from may to November. The flower-spikes tend to hand upside-down due to the weeping foliage.

The fruit is a capsule, that are about 4 mm long and wide, clustered along the stems.