Description: Small erect to prostrate shrubs.
Leaves alternate, margins entire or apically toothed.
Flowers axillary or terminal, pedicellate, solitary or few in a corymb. Sepals free. Petals lanceolate or linear, free over most or all of their length, ascending to recurved in the upper half. Stamens free; anthers shorter than the filaments. Ovary sessile, glabrous.
Fruit a dry, dehiscent capsule, ovoid or shortly cylindrical, compressed, 2- or 3-locular, loculicidally dehiscent; seeds few to several.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 4 species, endemic Australia. Australia: N.S.W., Vic., Tas., S.A.
This genus is sometimes included in Billardiera.
Text by R. O. Makinson
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Subalpine heaths and woodland habitats, above c. 800 m; aerial woody stems less than 10 cm high; extensively rhizomatous; leaves appearing densely whorled or clustered, always with adaxial leaf surface uppermost | 2 |
| Non-subalpine heath and open woodland habitats, not usually above 800 m; aerial woody stems sometimes erect, 0.5–1 m high, but usually procumbent and aerial, rather than subterranean; leaves alternate or clustered into a funnel-shaped arrangement, adaxial leaf surface not always uppermost | 3 |
| 2 | Leaves mainly narrowly elliptic, 4–5 mm wide; flowers with flattened ovaries; fruit indehiscent, woody, persistent | Rhytidosporum alpinum |
| Leaves mostly narrowly obovate; flowers with globose ovaries, not flattened; fruit loculicidally dehiscent, chartaceous, not persistent
Back to 1 | Rhytidosporum inconspicuum |
| 3 | Leaves linear or very narrowly elliptic, 10–16 mm long; apex acuminate with distinct mucro; inflorescence almost sessile | Rhytidosporum diosmoides |
| Leaves narrowly obovate or angular elliptic, never linear, 5–20 mm long; apex often 3-lobed; inflorescence with flowers pedicellate
Back to 1 | 4 |
| 4 | Leaves alternate and 2-ranked, not stem-clasping, with adaxial surface uppermost; stems rhizomatous, prostrate, unbranched or sparingly branched, with adaxial surface uppermost; inflorescences an umbel of usually 1–6-flowered; peduncles 12–15 mmlong | Rhytidosporum prostratum |
| Leaves usually in a funnelled, stem-clasping arrangement, adaxial surface not always facing uppermost; inflorescence rarely of more than 3 flowers; plants erect to nearly 0.5 m high; stems generally above ground, rarely subterranean; leaves 2–3 mm wide
Back to 3 | Rhytidosporum procumbens |
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