The most important Australian species used as ornamentals are included in two big families: Myrtaceae and Proteaceae; among the Myrtaceae, the genus Callistemon, at the moment, is proving very successful as flowering potted plant and flowering shrub. Experiments were performed at the Department of Crop Biology of the University of Pisa, Italy, during summer-autumn 2002 to test the salt tolerance of Callistemon 90 day old plants of 11 Callistemon species were grown in pots under four different salinity levels: 6 (control); 50, 100, and 200 mM NaCl during four months. Results indicate that Callistemon is a highly salt tolerant genus, in fact most of the species, with the exception of C. pityoides, e C. viridiflorus increased their growth in the presence of salt. This was particularly evident in C. pallidus, C. phoeniceus, and, especially, in C. teretifolius, whose growth rate increased proportionally with salinity. The high salt tolerance of Callistemon makes this genus very interesting as an ornamental plant suitable for saline soils and coastal areas. G. Lippi, G. Serra, P. Vernieri, F. Tognoni. ISHS Acta Horticulturae 609: International Symposium on Managing Greenhouse Crops in Saline Environment www.actahort.org