Calothamnus quadrifidus is a shrub from the south-west of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

. Its common name is the One-sided Bottlebrush which alludes to the arrangement of the stamens of its inflorescence

Inflorescence

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

 which line up on one side of the stem.

It usually grows to around 2.5 metres in height and width and it flowers from mid-winter to early summer. It has red, white and yellow flower forms, with the red flowered form most commonly seen in cultivation.

The species was named by botanist Robert Brown

Robert Brown (botanist)

Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist and palaeobotanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope...

 who collected a specimen from Lucky Bay near Esperance

Esperance, Western Australia

Esperance is a large town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, located on the Southern Ocean coastline approximately east-southeast of the state capital, Perth. The shire of Esperance is home to 9,536 people as of the 2006 census, its major industries are tourism, agriculture,...

in 1802.