Nice red flowers on what I think is a Callistemon, though I'm not sure what species. It looks to me like what Nadia posted from UBCBG in 2012 as C.allistemon citrinus, which @Ron B thought might really be some other species. Exotic and rare plants at UBCBG in July. I do see one page for C. citrinus 'Splendens' that shows wider and fuzzier leaves, and a comment somewhere that C. Citrinus is a synonym for Melaleuca citrina. I'm not seeing leaves like this coming up in my Melaleuca search. This is in Stanley Park, where Rose Garden Lane turns to run along the side of the Pavilion.
All Callistemon have now been incorporated into Melaleuca. I'm inclined to think that your plant is a young Melaleuca viminalis, formerly Callistemon viminalis. It has the weeping habit, narrow green leaves that are fairly glabrous and there's not too much visible pollen on the anthers.
Thank you, Goeff! I see several photos from a search that look like this. The tree on this page: Callistemon viminalis (syn. Melaleuca viminalis) was not at all convincing (it does say "some forms are more pendulous than others"), but they show a cultivar Callistemon 'Captain Cook' that looks very similar. There is a Botany Photo of the Day on the C. viminalis cultivar 'Rose Opal': Callistemon viminalis ‘Rose Opal’, but no habit photo. The Australian National Herbarium links given there list several cultivars. I'm looking for some evidence that C. viminalis has ever appeared in Canada, not sure how to find that. Gardenia.net, a US page, does list it: Callistemon viminalis (Weeping Bottlebrush). Phoenix Perennials does not have it listed. They have carried Callistemon subulatus/Melaleuca sublulata, which looks similar to me. Maybe not weeping enough? And I wonder if this one is the same as what I agree seems to have the wrong leaves for C. citrinus in this posting: Exotic and rare plants at UBCBG in July.
The young foliage of Melaleuca citrina is usually downy and quite soft, while M. viminalis is pretty sclerophyllous at any stage. Overall, M. viminalis is a harder, tougher, more woody plant that's usually covered in masses of seed capsules.
Melaleuca subulata has finer leaves and is a smaller plant with a spreading habit. Around twice as wide as it is high. The florets in the inflorescence are a little more widely spaced and consequently so are the individual capsules. That said, citrina, subulata and viminalis are similar species that overlap in range and which are fairly common in cultivation, so it wouldn't be surprising if there were a range of hybrids in gardens and in the wild. Quite a good example of how the idea of a species is becoming ever more plastic.
Here are some more photos, today's having come out better than the previous ones. The leaves are 4 - 5 cm long and 5 mm wide.
I don't know if they have planting records. The person I contacted passed my note on to someone who asked one of the gardeners. This is the reply: Originally my Gardener [...] believed the Callistemon to be species linearis but after further review she thinks it is Callistemon citrinus. I hopes that helps, please feel free to contact me directly if I can be of further assistance.That would be Melaleuca linearis now, synonyms Callistemon pinifolius and Callistemon rigidus. We have ruled out M. citrinus, and photos at Callistemon rigidus (Stiff Bottlebrush) for Callistemon rigidus show leaves much like M. citrinus and it's only supposed to be hardy to USDA zones 10 thru 11. On the other hand, photos of Callistemon viminals 'Little John' at Callistemon viminalis 'Little John' (Bottlebrush) also show leaves like both of those. The problem with bothering the Parks Board folks anyway is that they just record, if they do record, what the plants are labelled as when they come in, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of effort taken at the supplier stage to make sure the names are correct. In some sense, I guess it makes sense to speak the suppliers' language - if you see a plant you like and want the same thing, you need to be using the name it was sold under, right or wrong.
A 1990 accession of rigidus at the Graham Visitor Center of the Seattle arboretum has the same growth habit
'Little John' isn't a viminalis or citrinus cultivar. It's a hybrid of apparently unknown parentage. The foliage is quite soft, not stiff and leathery, and is downy when young. It has a distinct glaucius tint. While the branch tips may weep slightly, it's really a fairly upright bush. The flowerheads are a dark red, almost a dull red. You really wouldn't mistake them, flowers or foliage, if you saw them together. It's also much more frost tender. I'd say zone 9, while citrinus and viminalis would probably be happy in the warmer parts of zone 8 if they had enough summer heat.
Right. They don't all look the same to me on that search page. Some have the skinny needles of the Stanley Park tree, without much in the way of hairs, and others have the wider hairier-looking leaves. And I don't know what else I should be noticing that I'm capable of evaluating. @hortiphoto mentioned the narrow glabrous leaves and the anthers without much visible pollen. You (Ron B) have said you've seen it growing in Seattle, which is a little warmer than here, but not so much that it would be impossible for it to survive here. This photo looks similar to me: Callistemon Rigidus from Burncoose Nurseries 1. How would I distinguish M. viminalis from M. rigidus? Or as Goeff says, the idea of species is getting more plastic, and that should start right here? 2. It's not having heard the name or seen the name "viminalis" occurring here that makes me wonder if it is more likely something else similar-looking that has been known to have shown up around here.
