A shrub or tree, especially from Australia, that has dense, cylindrical flower clusters that resemble the shape of a bottle brush.
Compound word from 'bottle' and 'brush,' named for the visual resemblance of its flowering spikes to a cleaning brush for narrow bottles. The term became standard in horticulture in the 19th century.
Bottlebrushes are absolute nectar factories—their dense, bottle-brush-shaped flowers attract hundreds of native bees and birds, and they're so tough that Australian Aboriginals used them for multiple purposes before European settlement.
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