Tea Tree Oil

Dr. Andrew Weil writes:
"Tea tree oil, a recent Australian import, is extracted from the leaves of Melaleuca alternifolia, a native tree of New South Wales. Aborigines chewed the leaves for colds and drank a tea of them for general sickness. The oil is a powerful disinfectant and most useful herbal remedy. It is a clear liquid, strongly aromatic, with an odor similar to that of eucalyptus. Tea tree oil is a good treatment for fungal infections of the skin (athlete's foot, ringworm, jock itch). It will also clear up fungal infections of the toenails or fingernails, a condition notoriously resistant to treatment, even by strong systemic antibiotics. You just paint the oil on affected areas two or three times a day. Tea tree oil is nontoxic. Apply it full strength to boils and other localized infections. A ten percent solution (about one and a half tablespoons to a cup of warm water) can be used to rinse and clean infected wounds with good results. The same solution makes an effective vaginal douche for treatment of both yeast and Trichomonas infections, but some women may find it irritating. Tea tree oil is available in most health-food and herb stores. Make sure that the label says it is pure".

Melaleuca (pronounced /ˌmɛləˈljuːkə/)[1] is a genus of plants in the myrtle family Myrtaceae. There are well over 200 recognized species, most of which are endemic to Australia.[2] A few species occur in Malesia and 7 species are endemic to New Caledonia.[2][3] The species are shrubs and trees growing (depending on species) to 2–30 m tall, often with flaky, exfoliating bark. The leaves are evergreen, alternately arranged, ovate to lanceolate, 1-25 cm long and 0.5-7 cm broad, with an entire margin, dark green to grey-green in colour. The flowers are produced in dense clusters along the stems, each flower with fine small petals and a tight bundle of stamens; flower colour varies from white to pink, red, pale yellow or greenish. The fruit is a small capsule containing numerous minute seeds.

Melaleuca is closely related to Callistemon, the main difference between the genera being that the stamens are generally free in Callistemon but grouped into bundles in Melaleuca.

In the wild, Melaleuca plants are generally found in open forest, woodland or shrubland, particularly along watercourses and the edges of swamps.

The best-accepted common name for Melaleuca is simply melaleuca; however most of the larger species are also known as paperbarks, and the smaller types as honey myrtles. They are also sometimes referred to as punk trees.[4]

One well-known melaleuca, the Ti tree (aka tea tree), Melaleuca alternifolia, is notable for its essential oil which is both anti-fungal, and antibiotic, while safely usable for topical applications. This is produced on a commercial scale, and marketed as Tea Tree Oil. The Ti tree is presumably named for the brown colouration of many water courses caused by leaves shed from trees of this and similar species (for a famous example see Brown Lake (Stradbroke Island)). The name "tea tree" is also used for a related genus, Leptospermum. Both Leptospermum and Melaleuca are myrtles of the family, Myrtaceae.

In Australia, Melaleuca species are sometimes used as food plants by the larvae of hepialid moths of the genus Aenetus including A. ligniveren. These burrow horizontally into the trunk then vertically down.

Melaleucas are popular garden plants, both in Australia and other tropical areas worldwide. In Hawaii and the Florida everglades, Melaleuca quinquenervia (Broad-leaved Paperbark) was introduced in order to help drain low-lying swampy areas. It has since gone on to become a serious invasive weed with potentially very serious consequences being that the plants are highly flammable and spread aggressively. Melaleuca populations have nearly quadrupled in southern Florida over the past decade, as can be noted on IFAS's SRFer Mapserver

The genus Callistemon was recently placed into Melaleuca.

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