No. 185 - Tea Tree

I just started to read Men Who Hate Women by Stieg Larsson, the subject of Post No. 113. The title of the book was changed when it was released in the United States. It is now known as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

The prologue starts with a man receiving a single flower on his eighty-second birthday. It appears that he has been receiving one on his birthday for many years. The particular flower is described in the book as:

The Latin name was Leptospermum (Myrtaceae) rubinette. It was a plant about ten centimetres high with small, heather-like foliage and a white flower with five petals about two centimetres across.

The plant was native to the Australian bush and uplands, where it was to be found among tussocks of grass. There it was called Desert Snow. Someone at the botanical gardens in Uppsala would later confirm that it was a plant seldom cultivated in Sweden. The botanist wrote in her report that it was related to the tea tree and that it was sometimes confused with its more common cousin Leptospermum scoparium, which grew in abundance in New Zealand. What distinguished them, she pointed out, was that rubinette had a small number of microscopic pink dots at the tips of the petals, giving the flower a faint pinkish tinge.

Rubinette was altogether an unpretentious flower. It had no known medicinal properties, and it could not induce hallucinatory experiences. It was neither edible, nor had a use in the manufacture of plant dyes. On the other hand, the aboriginal people of Australia regarded as sacred the region and the flora around Ayers Rock.

I could not confirm that this particular "rubinette" species is real, or just a fictional flower used in the novel.

I did learn though that most species of Leptospermum are endemic to Australia. The common name of "tea tree" was derived from the practice of early Australian settlers who soaked the leaves of several species in boiling water to make a herbal tea rich in ascorbic acid (Vitamin C). It is said that Captain Cook brewed tea of Leptospermum leaves to prevent scurvy amongst his crews.