Calytrix arborescens is a species of flowering plant in the myrtle family Myrtaceae and is endemic to the Northern Territory. It is a shrub or tree with egg-shaped leaves and clusters of white flowers with 45 to 60 white stamens in 2 rows.
Calytrix arborescens is a shrub or tree that typically grows to a height of up to, and has overlapping egg-shaped leaves, broadly triangular in cross-section, long, wide and sessile. There is a stipules up to long at the base of the leaves. The flowers are arranged singly in leaf axils, the floral tube is a tapering cylinder with 10 ribs and long. The sepals are joined at the base, long and wide with a pointed awn. The petals are white, narrowly lance-shaped, long and wide and there are about 50 to 60 white stamens in 2 rows. Flowering occurs between June and October.[1] [2]
Calytrix arborescens was first formally described in 1859 by Ferdinand von Mueller who gave it the name Calycothrix arborescens in the Transactions of the Philosopical Institute of Victoria from specimens collected "in arid bushy plains" near the headwaters of the Roper and Limmen Bight Rivers.[3] In 1867, George Bentham transferred the species to Calytrix as C. arborescens in his Flora Australiensis.[4] The specific epithet (arborescens) means "becoming tree-like".[5]
This starflower grows on white sand on sandy alluvial flats and in woodland and heathy scrub on sandstone in the Arnhem Coast, Arnhem Plateau, Daly Basin, Darwin Coastal, Gulf Fall and Uplands, Pine Creek and Tiwi Cobourg bioregions in the north of the Northern Territory.[2]