Whence
Tea tree (source of tea tree oil)
Plant

Where does Tea tree (source of tea tree oil) come from?

The tea tree comes from eastern Australia, where it grows wild along streams and on swampy flats in northern New South Wales and southeast Queensland. It is a myrtle, no relation of the plant that gives drinking tea, and its leaves are distilled into tea tree oil.

A myrtle of the swamps

Melaleuca alternifolia is a tall shrub or small tree, up to about 7 metres high, with whitish, papery bark. Its soft, narrow leaves, 10 to 35 mm long and about 1 mm wide, are dotted with oil glands, and in spring it is covered in fluffy spikes of white flowers. It grows only in Australia, on the coast and nearby ranges from around Grafton in New South Wales north into Queensland, and where it grows it is often the dominant plant.

From the bush to plantations

The earliest reported use of the plant was by the Bundjalung people of northern New South Wales. Commercial use began in the 1920s, when the chemist Arthur Penfold studied Australian essential oils for their business potential and found tea tree oil promising. Accounts that Australian soldiers carried the oil in their kits during World War II remain unconfirmed. After the war production ebbed, until interest revived in the 1970s and plantations, many in New South Wales, began producing the oil in large quantities.

Two different tea trees

The name causes the confusion. The tea plant, Camellia sinensis, belongs to a different family, the Theaceae, and is itself sometimes called the tea tree. Melaleuca belongs to the myrtle family, alongside eucalyptus, clove and guava. Its English name probably goes back to Captain James Cook, who described one of these Australian and New Zealand shrubs that he used to brew a drink in place of tea. Today 'tea tree' covers several such plants.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org › Melaleuca alternifolia ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Tea tree oil ↗ · plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au ↗ · pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Camellia sinensis ↗

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