Commemorating Astarte, the Phoenician Goddess of fertility.

Airless shrubs or occasionally trees. Leaves decussate, entire, small, narrow, aromatic when crushed. Flowers solitary in the leaf axils, the calyx tube cup-shaped. Sepals 5, shorter than the petals. Petals 5, white or pink. Stamens 5-many, fused into 5 bundles, longer than the petals. Ovary 3-chambered. Fruit a woody 3-valved capsule.

Grown for the fine leaves and prolific flowers.

5 species from WA.

Seed or cuttings.

Stamens in 5 bundles opposite the sepals, cf. Baeckea and Babingtonia.

Source: Spencer, R. (2002). Myrtaceae. In: Spencer, R.. Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 3. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 2. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.