Description: Erect, hairy annuals or short-lived perennials.
Leaves alternate or scattered, semiterete to flattened and obovate, hairy.
Flowers bisexual, axillary, 2–numerous, fused at least at the base or forming dense woody spherical heads, 5-partite.
Fruiting perianth hardened, with or without spiny or tuberculate appendages, fused at least basally to 1 or more other fruiting perianths, dispersing as a unit. Seed horizontal; perisperm abundant; embryo annular. Widespread in drier inland areas.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 4 species, endemic Australia. Australia: all mainland States.
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Flowers 2–8, united at base | Dissocarpus biflorus |
| Flowers 6–numerous, in dense spinescent spherical heads | 2 |
| 2 | Perianth tube protruding above the surface of the dense, spherical, woody head; spines irregularly produced, often laterally flattened | Dissocarpus fontinalis |
| Perianth tube not visible above the surface of the dense, spherical, woody head; spines regularly 5, opposite each perianth lobe
Back to 1 | 3 |
| 3 | Leaves linear, semiterete, to c. 3 mm wide | Dissocarpus paradoxus |
| Leaves flattened, obovate, 5–8 mm wide
Back to 2 | Dissocarpus latifolius |
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