Austral English / A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia - Edward Ellis Morris

<hw>Tea-tree</hw>, n. (Very frequently, but erroneously, spelt Ti-tree, and occasionally, more ridiculously still, Ti-tri, q.v.) A name given in Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania to several species of trees and shrubs whose leaves were used by Captain Cook's sailors, by escaped convicts, and by the early settlers as a ready substitute for the leaves of the Chinese Tea-plant (Thea chinensis) for making tea. The trees of the genera Leptospermum and Melaleuca were the earliest used, in Australia and New Zealand, in this way. When in blossom, the branches of many species, with their little white flowers, and the general appearance of their leaves, bear a strong resemblance to those of the true Tea-plant. Their leaves, though exceedingly aromatic, have not, however, the same flavour. Nevertheless, it was probably this superficial likeness which first suggested the experiment of making an infusion from them. Some of the species of Leptospermum and Melaleuca are so closely allied, that their names are by some botanists interchanged and used as synonyms for the same plant.

Although not all of the species of these two genera were used for making tea, yet, as a tree-name, the word Tea-tree is indifferently and loosely used to denote nearly all of them, especially in the form Tea-tree scrub, where they grow, as is their habit, in swamps, flat-land, and coastal districts. Other trees or plants to which the name of Tea-tree was occasionally given, are species of the genera Kunzea and Callistemon.

The spelling Ti-tree is not only erroneous as to the origin of the name, but exceedingly misleading, as it confuses the Australian Tea-tree with another Ti (q.v.) in Polynesia (Cordyline ti). This latter genus is represented, in Australia and New Zealand, by the two species Cordyline australis and C. indivisa, the Cabbage-trees (q.v.), or Cabbage palms (q.v.), or Ti-palms (q.v.), or Ti (q.v.), which are a marked feature of the New Zealand landscape, and are of the lily family (N.O. Liliaceae), while the genera Leptospermum and Melaleuca are of the myrtle family (N.O. Myrtaceae).

As to the species of the Australian Tea-tree, that first used by Cook's sailors was either—Leptospermum scoparium, R. and G. Forst.,

or L. lanigerum, Smith.

The species most used for infusions was—

L. fravescens, Smith (syn. L. thea, Willd., and Melaleuca thea, Willd.).

The Coast Tea-tree, common on the Victorian shores, and so useful as a sand-binder, is—

L. laevigatum, F. v. M.

The Common Australian Tea-tree (according to Maiden) is Melaleuca leucodendron, Linn.; called also White Tea-tree, Broad-leaved T.-t., Swamp T.-t., and Paper-bark T.-t.