Description: Erect multistemmed shrubs to large trees; bark texture and colour variable on main stem, branchlets rounded, compressed or 4-angled.
Leaves usually opposite, petiolate.
Inflorescence a single flower, or raceme-like or panicle-like. Flowers 4- or 5-merous. Hypanthium not extending beyond the ovary summit. Sepals mostly persistent in fruit and held above the body of the fruit. Petals free. Stamens numerous, free. Ovary inferior, 2-locular; ovules few to many in each loculus; placentation axile; stigma small.
Fruit a soft berry, yellow-orange or reddish, or more usually dark purple to black at maturity; seeds usually 2–10, not obviously arranged in rows, testa bony to leathery; embryo curved, cotyledons small.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 35 spp., Malesia to N.Cal., Fiji, Aust. Aust.: c. 16 spp. (endemic), Qld, N.S.W.
Text by Peter G. Wilson Taxon concept:
| Key to the species | |
1 | Flowers predominantly 5-merous; mature fruit black. | 2 |
| Flowers 4-merous; fruit yellow to orange. | Gossia fragrantissima |
2 | Bark smooth; leaves mostly ovate or broad-elliptic, apex acute or acuminate with a fine point. | 3 |
| Bark more or less rough; leaves mostly elliptic, apex acuminate with a rounded apex. Back to 1 | 4 |
3 | Oil glands on upper leaf surface densely crowded, readily visible; sepals petaloid. | Gossia bidwillii |
| Oil glands on upper leaf not crowded; sepals not petaloid. Back to 2 | Gossia acmenoides |
4 | Leaves lacking conspicuous oil glands on lower surface; flowers hairy. | Gossia hillii |
| Leaves with conspicuous oil glands on lower surface; flowers very finely pubescent to glabrous. Back to 2 | Gossia punctata |
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