The Melaleuca That Grows Sideways

Two metres round the trunk, three and a half metres tall, and a crown eleven metres wide. Those numbers describe a tree that decided early on to spend its life going outwards rather than up, and the result in this waterfront garden is a low sprawling dome of long branches running almost horizontally from the base, which you walk under rather than look up at. The parish calls it a living monument, and it is the strangest thing on this page. Melaleuca armillaris comes from the coast of New South Wales, gets its name from the bracelet-like rings its cream flowers form along the stems, and has papery bark that peels in soft sheets. It is planted along the Sado waterfront because it tolerates salt wind, which is the same reason it grows low and wide: this is what the species does when it spends a century in the path of weather off the water. The register puts it at 150 years, which is high for its kind and which no other source confirms, so treat the number lightly and the tree seriously.