Description: Shrubs or small trees, with scales, unarmed; branchlets smooth or warty.
Leaves alternate, simple, glandular-punctate, margins ± entire, flat or recurved.
Inflorescences axillary or terminal, cymose or flowers solitary; bracteoles 2, near middle of pedicel or apical. Flowers bisexual, 5-merous. Sepals free, imbricate. Petals 5, imbricate or united, glabrous or scaly. Stamens 10, free; filaments flattened terete, glabrous or basally stellate-hairy; anthers versatile, apex not glandular. Carpels 5, ± free, with a short sterile apex; styles fused, arising from about the middle of the carpels; stigma scarcely lobed; ovules 2 in each carpel.
Fruit of 1–5 cocci; cocci not transversely ridged, with a rounded or beaked apex; seeds broad-ellipsoid to sub-reniform, 2–2.5 mm long, smooth, shiny.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 7 spp., endemic Aust., Qld, N.S.W., Vic., Tas., W.A.
Text by P.H. Weston & G.J. Harden
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Leaves >15 mm long, elliptic to broad-elliptic or ± ovate. | 2 |
| Leaves <15 mm long, ovate to broad-obovate or broad-elliptic. | 3 |
| 2 | Leaves obtuse to acuminate; ovary glabrous. | Nematolepis squamea |
| Leaves retuse; ovary with silvery scales.
Back to 1 | Nematolepis elliptica |
| 3 | Leaves broad-ovate to broad-elliptic, apex obtuse to rounded, sometimes acute; bracteoles 2, ovate, grading into sepals, 1–1.5 mm long; ovary scaly. | Nematolepis ovatifolia |
| Leaves obovate, apex obcordate; bracteoles 0–2, narrow-oblong, <1 mm long; ovary glabrous.
Back to 1 | Nematolepis rhytidophylla |
|
