Description: Trees or tall shrubs.
Leaves whorled or rarely ± alternate, margins entire or toothed, scleromorphic, petiolate [or sessile]. Conflorescences raceme-like, terminal or axillary and sometimes ramiflorous; flowers in pairs, sessile.
Flowers actinomorphic. Perianth straight to ± curved; tepals separating and recurved in upper part at anthesis. Anthers on short filaments, connective produced into a short appendage. Hypogynous glands fused into a ring. Ovary sessile, hairy; ovules 2, laterally attached near top of fruit; style filiform, expanded apically into a ± ellipsoid pollen presenter.
Fruit a follicle, globose, with a thin mesocarp, tardily dehiscent; seed usually solitary and ± globose, or rarely paired and ± hemispherical.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 9 species, Australia, Celebes. Australia: 7 species (endemic), Qld & N.S.W.
Two species are widely cultivated in Australia as well as in the Hawaiian Is and California for their edible kernels.(Macadamia Nuts)
Text by G. J. Harden
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Leaves mostly in whorls of 4, base very obtuse, more or less sessile or petioles less than 3 mm long; new growth reddish | Macadamia tetraphylla |
| Leaves mostly in whorls of 3, base more or less narrow-cuneate, petiole more than 5 mm long; new growth pale green | Macadamia integrifolia |
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