Bottlebrush

Bottlebrush, a graceful evergreen shrub or tree, is much in evidence along Southern California roads and freeways and in gardens, parks and schoolyards this spring.

Its scientific name, Callistemon, comes from the Greek words kallistos, meaning “most beautiful,” and stemon, meaning a slender stalk or stem. It is a native of Australia. Although it is drought resistant, it grows best in moist, well-drained soils.

Lemon bottlebrush (Callistemon citrinus), the most popular of about 25 species, is recognizable by its bright red flowers, which resemble bottle brushes. The flower clusters are two to four inches long with about inch-long stems.

Lemon bottlebrush can be a massive shrub 10 to 15 feet tall or a small tree up to 30 feet in height. Its narrow, lance-shaped leaves, when mature, are a vivid green and about three inches long and a quarter-inch wide. The leaves are coppery colored in new growth.

Flowers are followed by woody capsules that look like bands of beads pressed into bark.

Pictured here are several large bottlebrush shrubs on the Sepulveda Boulevard on-ramp to the eastbound Simi Valley Freeway.