Description: Erect shrubs.
Leaves alternate, deeply pinnatisect or ternately divided into terete ± rigid segments [or entire].
Inflorescences terminal or axillary, spike-like and forming ± ovoid cone-like structures; flowers sessile within a bract, bracts broad and imbricate, enlarging and becoming woody in fruit. Flowers actinomorphic. Perianth divided into 4 linear, equally spreading tepals, falling separately or remaining united. Anthers sessile on base of expanded apical portion of tepals. Hypogonous glands absent. Ovary sessile; ovules 1 or 2; style filiform, pollen presenter dilated into a hispid or papillate brush with a glabrous apex.
Fruit a nut, shorter than the bract, nut with hairs often longer than the bract; infructescence cone-like, ovoid to oblong; bracts firmly adhering to the rachis and opening to release the flattened nuts.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 63 species, endemic Australia. Australia: Qld & N.S.W. (4 species), S.A. (1 species, Kangaroo Is), W.A. (c. 37 species).
Text by G. J Harden
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Cones sessile or on peduncles to 10 mm long, terminal and solitary, or with several axillary cones close to the base; bracts pubescent, at least when young; perianth silky, 10–14 mm long; leaves usually 3–10 cm long | 2 |
| Cones on peduncles 10–30 mm long, axillary; bracts and perianth glabrous, perianth 8–10 mm long; leaves mostly 8–16 cm long | Petrophile pedunculata |
| 2 | Young shoots glabrous, or almost so | Petrophile pulchella |
| Young shoots at least pubescent
Back to 1 | 3 |
| 3 | Leaves with segments spreading, very divaricate, rigid, more or less pungent, glabrescent; undivided part of leaf shorter than divided part | Petrophile sessilis |
| Leaves with segments ascending, not pungent, greyish and pubescent; undivided part of leaf longer than the divided part
Back to 2 | Petrophile canescens |
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