This plant is not from this area of the world. I photographed it in a Botanical Garden. I had never heard of the genus, but when I do a search I get lots of hits.
Hmmm...40 views and not a single guess. I can't post any other photos of this plant because I don't have any. I will attach three other plants in the same genus to see if that helps. I thought our new member Puddleton or one of his compatriots might know this one. Here is another species from the same genus and a couple of hybrids.
Still no guesses! The genus of these plants has around 100 identified species, is native to Australia and is popular in the florist trade (I am guessing in Aus. cause I have not seen them here). You can see why from the varied flowers in the pics. If no guesses by Monday, should I give y'all the family?
Wow, Eric we're obviously not up on the Australian stuff! Verticordia, after much snooping around. Flowers reminded me of helichrysum, rest of the plant was melaleuca like, no help there. I've never heard of nor seen it up here either. Another unique deal from that western Australian horticultural nirvana... Glen
They are all Verticordia, photographed at Kings Park Botanic Gardens in Perth. Good job Glen. These plants were just blooming madly when I visited in late spring (Dec.). I had never seen them before and thought they were kind of wild looking plants. The flowers are really dazlers. I have no idea if they are grown in areas other than their native Western Australia. If they are grown for flower trade, they must respond to cultured environments. (I am at home. These plants are not that familiar to me either so I will post the species IDs tomorrow when I can refer to my notes.)
I hate to say it, but I tried to cheat but trying to refine the plant tag on the ground by the middle plant. I figured it was from Oz but I couldn't find anything close in the databases I looked at. Sort of figured Ron knew and he was just giving us a fair chance. Too much variance -- nice stumper Eric!
I noticed that the tag was somewhat legible, but about all you could get there was "hybrid". In order of appearance in the thread the plants are: 1. Verticordia dichroma var. syntoma 2. V. cooloomia 3. V. hybrid × 4. V. chrysostachys × muelleriana