Description: Shrubs or trees.
Leaves opposite, venation usually evident, petiolate.
Inflorescences terminal, panicles. Flowers usually 4- or 5-merous. Calyx lobes small. Petals ± circular, sometimes irregular in shape. Stamens short; anthers reniform, lobes divergent. Ovary ± inferior, 2-locular; ovules pendent from a placenta at the top of the axis; style usually shorter than the stamens, stigma small.
Fruit a firm berry, usually globose to depressed-globose, crowned by the circular remains of the rim of the hypanthium; seed solitary, testa apparently absent, cotyledons fused with a dark intercotyledonary inclusion connected to the apex of the fruit.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 15 species, Australia and Malesia. Australia: 7 species (6 species endemic), Qld, N.S.W., Vic., N.T.
A number of species are often cultivated as ornamental trees.
Text by Peter G. Wilson
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Fruit more than 20 mm diam., dark pink to red | Acmena ingens |
| Fruit less than 20 mm diam., white to purple | 2 |
| 2 | Main lateral veins at an angle of 40–50° to the midvein; leaves only faintly aromatic when crushed; fruit always white or cream, fruiting pedicels thickened | Acmena hemilampra |
| Main lateral veins at an angle of 65–80° to the midvein; leaves pleasantly aromatic when crushed; fruit white, frequently flushed with purple, fruiting pedicels not noticeably thickened
Back to 1 | Acmena smithii |
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