An evergreen shrub up to 10 ft high, but forming rounded, dense hummocks 2 to 3 ft high and up to 8 ft across in exposed places in the mountains, where it ascends to 4,500 ft. Leaves rigid, 3⁄4 to 2 in. long, 1⁄10 to 1⁄5 in. wide, linear-lanceolate, tapering from the base to a slender point, sheathing and completely covering the stem by the broadened base, slightly decurved, glabrous. Flowers closely packed in a terminal, stiffly erect, spike-like raceme, 2 to 4 in. long, 11⁄4 in. wide. Corolla obovate to ovoid, 1⁄4 to 3⁄8 in. long; see further below and in introductory note. Bot. Mag., t. 9632.
Native of Tasmania. It was introduced by Mr Overall, a Tasmanian nurseryman, but the plants now in cultivation derive from seed collected by H. F. Comber in 1930. According to him, R. scoparia varies greatly in colour – ‘white, pale or deep pink, red or maroon. One report credits it with yellow, but I hesitate to confirm this.’ Four colour forms are figured in Endemic Flora of Tasmania, Part III, No. 111, including one with orange-coloured flowers tipped with red, collected by Lord Talbot de Malahide on Mount Wellington. Cultivated plants have the flowers crimson, pink, or white tipped with pink.
R. scoparia is hardy, except perhaps in the coldest parts; it needs a moist, acid soil and a sunny position. It received an Award of Merit in 1942, when shown by Col. S. R. Clarke from Borde Hill, Sussex, where it still thrives. It is also cultivated on the rock garden at Kew, at Wakehurst Place in Sussex, and in the Edinburgh Botanic Garden. It is best propagated by seeds, which should be harvested while the capsules are still green, but particular colour-forms have to be perpetuated by cuttings, which can be struck under mist.
R. dracophylla R. Br. – Allied to R. scoparia but with much larger leaves, 6 in. to 1 ft long, and producing its white flowers in much-branched panicles up to 10 in. long. It is a large shrub in the wild, found in the lower forests of Tasmania, and unlikely to be hardy here except in the mildest parts. It is figured in Bot. Mag., n.s., t. 468, from a plant growing in the Australian House at Kew.