Calytrix alpestris, commonly known as snow-myrtle,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the myrtle family Myrtaceae and is endemic to southern continental Australia. It is a shrub with wiry branchlets, linear to narrowly egg-shaped or narrowly lance-shaped leaves and clusters of white flowers with 14 to 37 white stamens in a single row.
Calytrix alpestris is a shrub that typically grows to a height of up to, and has spreading, wiry, hairy and often arching branchlets. Its leaves are linear to narrowly egg-shaped or narrowly lance-shaped, long and about wide on a petiole long. The flowers are arranged in leaf axils near the ends of branches with bracteoles at the base. The floral tube has 10 ribs and is long and free from the style. The sepals are glabrous, long and wide and usually with an awn up to long. The petals are white, long and wide and there are 14 to 37 white stamens in a single row. Flowering occurs from September to January.[2] [3]
This species was first described in 1838 by John Lindley who gave it the name Genetyllis alpestris in Thomas Mitchell's Three Expeditions into the interior of Eastern Australia.[4] [5] In 1957, Arthur Bertram Court transferred the species to Calytrix as C. alpestris in The Victorian Naturalist.[6]
Calytrix alpestris grows in heath or heathy woodland in the west and north-west of Victoria and the far south-east of South Australia.