Species
+

Chamelaucium uncinatum Schauer

Geraldton Wax, Geraldton wax plant, Geraldton-wax

Climate known 82 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Chamelaucium uncinatum, the Geraldton waxflower, Geraldton wax, is a flowering plant endemic to Western Australia. It is an erect shrub 0.5 to 4 meters high, bearing white or pink flowers June–November. The name uncinatum means "hooked" in Latin, in reference to the tips of the leaves.

Text from Wikipedia, “Chamelaucium uncinatum”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Chamelaucium

Chamelaucium, also known as waxflower, is a genus of shrubs endemic to south western Western Australia. They belong to the myrtle family Myrtaceae and have flowers similar to those of the tea-trees (Leptospermum). The most well-known species is the Geraldton wax, Chamelaucium uncinatum, which is cultivated widely for its large attractive flowers.

Text from Wikipedia, “Chamelaucium”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Myrtaceae
Described by
Schauer
Native to
Western Australia
Wild records
511 in range· 259 open

At a glance

Warmest month
31°C
Feb, mean day; nights 19 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
717mm/yr
7 wet months · peak Jul 142 mm (CHELSA)
Light
17–53DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a winter growing season, November to March in the northern hemisphere (May to September at the habitat, southern). Habitat rain 717 mm a year, wettest July at 142 mm, driest December at 9 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 53 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 10.2 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Chamelaucium affine Meisn.; Chamelaucium uncinatum var. leptophyllum Benth.; Darwinia uncinata (Schauer) F.Muell.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a winter growing season, November to March in the northern hemisphere (May to September at the habitat, southern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the year's rain (566 mm of 717 mm) falls in May to September, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 14.4 °C against a yearly mean of 18.5 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: November to March.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 717 mm a year, wettest July at 142 mm, driest December at 9 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

717 mm a year at the habitat, 566 mm of it May to September. Wettest month July at 142 mm, driest December at 9 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 399 mm to 865 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 53 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 53 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 15, the highest 90th-percentile month 54).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 10.2 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 10.2 °C, the absolute minimum 7.8 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.1 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 9.6 °C in July (across the envelope cells 6.7 °C to 11.5 °C), warmest day 30.6 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 10.2 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 51 to 57% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 17 °C in Jul to 31 °C in Feb; mean night from 10 °C in Jul to 19 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 717 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 199 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 7.8 °C and the 99th-percentile day 34.1 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°30°35°40°34.1° 99th-percentile day (undated)7.8° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 17–53RH 51–57 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 199 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C30 / 26–3331 / 27–3329 / 26–3125 / 23–2721 / 20–2318 / 17–2017 / 15–1817 / 16–1919 / 17–2121 / 19–2425 / 22–2828 / 24–31
Night °C18 / 17–2019 / 17–2117 / 16–2015 / 13–1713 / 10–1511 / 8–1310 / 7–1210 / 7–1111 / 8–1312 / 10–1415 / 14–1717 / 15–19
Rain mm13 / 7–1614 / 11–1521 / 16–2334 / 21–4497 / 58–120139 / 84–170142 / 79–171115 / 57–13773 / 32–9336 / 16–4524 / 11–329 / 6–12
DLI53 / 53–5347 / 47–4739 / 38–4129 / 27–3121 / 19–2417 / 15–2017 / 16–2123 / 21–2731 / 29–3542 / 40–4549 / 48–5153 / 53–54
RH %51 / 48–5551 / 49–5452 / 50–5454 / 53–5656 / 55–5757 / 55–5957 / 56–6057 / 56–5957 / 56–5956 / 54–5753 / 51–5652 / 50–56

Each figure is the median across the 199 grid cells holding the 475 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 2440:5917 (-32.025, 115.875). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 7.8 °C, 1st-percentile night 10.2 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.1 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 199 distinct grid cells holding the 475 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2440:5917 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -32.00_115.625, lapse-corrected -8 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 9 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeWestern Australia· introduced: New Zealand North, California
Kew's description“shrub” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-31.918, 115.799 · in the densest population, 424 records (83% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 511 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 259 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 9 km away. 62 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 36 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 511 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Chamelaucium uncinatumChamelaucium uncinatumChamelaucium uncinatumChamelaucium uncinatumChamelaucium uncinatumChamelaucium uncinatumChamelaucium uncinatumChamelaucium uncinatum

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (3); (c) Toby Jin, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Belinda Forbes, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Chamelaucium uncinatum, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Inhibitors of oxidative enzymes affect water uptake and vase life of cut Acacia holosericea and Chamelaucium uncinatum stems
Fisun Gürsel Çelikel, Daryl C. Joyce, John D. Faragher (2011) · Postharvest Biology and Technology
Identification of intracellular calcium oxalate crystals in Chamelaucium uncinatum (Myrtaceae)
Andrew J. Macnish, Donald E. Irving, Daryl C. Joyce, V. Vithanage (2003) · Australian Journal of Botany
Postharvest floral organ fall in Geraldton waxflower ( Chamelaucium uncinatum Schauer)
D. C. Joyce (1993) · Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture
Responses of Native Australian Cut Flowers to Treatment with 1-Methylcyclopropene and Ethylene
Andrew J. Macnish, D. H. Simons, Daryl C. Joyce, John D. Faragher (2000) · HortScience
Postharvest Characteristics of Geraldton Wax Flowers
Daryl C. Joyce (1988) · Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science
Infraspecific variability in the volatile leaf oils of Chamelaucium uncinatum (Myrtaceae)
Louise M. Egerton‐Warburton, Emilio L. Ghisalberti, John A. Considine (1998) · Biochemical Systematics and Ecology
Changes in sugar, protein, respiration, and ethylene in developing and harvested Geraldton waxflower (Chamelaucium uncinatum) flowers
C. M. Olley, Daryl C. Joyce, Donald E. Irving (1996) · New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science
Environmental and chemical control of growth and flowering of Chamelaucium uncinatum Schauer
R. Shillo, Amram Weiner, Abraham H. Halevy (1985) · Scientia Horticulturae

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 42 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.