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Callistemon 'Cane's Hybrid' (Cane's Bottlebrush) - An outstanding ornamental evergreen shrub or small tree to 15 to 20 feet tall by an equal width (can be kept smaller) with pastel-pink bottlebrush-type flowers that blooms profusely during late spring and early summer. Narrow green-gray leaves are on spreading, often arching branches with young foliage that is soft and tinged with pink.
Plant in full to part sun where it is drought tolerant once established. Responds well to pruning. Frost hardy to at least 20°F. An excellent plant as a small decorative tree, for use as screen, a hedge or as a wind break, even near the beach where it endures salt laden wind - in open windy locations it remains a lower and a more sprawled out shrub.
While we have never determined the parentage of this hybrid, it is believed to be a hybrid or selection of Callistemon sieberi (previously known as C. paludosus). The genus was named using the Greek words 'kallos' meaning "beautiful" and 'stemon' meaning "stamens" in reference to the long conspicuous and colorful stamens that characterize the flowers of this genus.
Callistemon 'Cane's Hybrid' is a 2002 University of California Santa Cruz Koala Blooms Australian Plant Introduction and may also be the same as plants being called Callistemon 'Pink Stiletto' or C. 'Pink Ice' by California nurseries not involved in the UCSC Koala Blooms program. See our Koala Blooms Page for a list of all of the introductions from the UCSC Arboretum.
The genus was named using the Greek words 'kallos' meaning "beautiful" and 'stemon' meaning "stamens" in reference to the long conspicuous and colorful stamens that characterize the flowers of this genus. Melaleuca and Callistemon have long been noted as closely related and separated on the basis that Callistemon stamens were free and those of Melaleuca were in bundles. In 2006, using DNA evidence, Australian botanist Dr. Lyndley Alan Craven of the Australian National Herbarium reclassified nearly all species of Callistemon as Melaleuca noting that Callistemon was insufficiently distinct from Melaleuca. For more information about this see our more detailed discussion about this name change on our Callistemon citrinus entry. Though this change makes this plant's name Melaleuca 'Cane's Hybrid', until such time that the new names have broad recognition in the California nursery trade, we will still refer to these plants as Callistemon.
This information about Callistemon 'Cane's Hybrid' displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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