Description: Shrubs or trees, often partially polygamous.
Leaves opposite, simple, margins entire or coarsely prickly-toothed in juveniles, leathery, veins prominently raised on both surfaces, petiolate. Conflorescences dense, spike-like, at first apparently terminal, becoming lateral by the elongation of the branchlet; flowers in pairs subtended by a bract.
Flowers actinomorphic. Perianth ± cylindrical in bud; tepals revolute at anthesis. Anthers on short filaments inserted below dilated limb. Hypogynous glands 4. Ovary in fertile flowers sessile or stipitate; ovules 2; style filiform expanded terminally into a clavate pollen presenter.
Fruit a follicle, large and woody, pyriform and attached at the larger end, eventually dehiscent; seeds 2, collateral, with a brown wing.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 5 species, endemic Australia. Australia: 2 species W.A., 3 species Qld & N.S.W.
Text by G. J. Harden
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Adult leaves 3–4 cm wide, 10–20 cm long, entire; juvenile leaves 4–5 cm wide, 15–20 cm long with 6–11 teeth along each margin; seeds with vein 2–3 mm in from margin of wing | Xylomelum pyriforme |
| Adult leaves 1.5–2 cm wide, 8–12 cm long, entire; juvenile leaves 2–3 cm wide, 8–15 cm long with up to 5 large teeth along each margin; seeds with vein along margin of wing | Xylomelum cunninghamianum |
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