Description: Shrubs, erect, procumbent or prostrate. Stems, leanes and inflorescences with stellate hairs, glandular hairs present or absent.
Leaves alternate, simple, entire irregularly sinuate to crenulate; juvenile leaves 3-lobed; petiole present; stipules sessile, narrow, not persistent.
Flowers arranged in a leaf-opposed cyme, subsessile or with long peduncles. Epicalyx absent. Calyx 5-lobed, petal-like, with whaite glandular hairs on inner surface. Petals 5, with lateral lobes incurved around stamens, apex ligulate. Stamens 5, opposite the petals, filaments shortly inited in a short or long staminal tube, with 1–3 staminodes between each stamen, central or only staminode petal-like. Ovary superior, sessile, usually 5-locular, each locule with 2–14 ovules, style usually 5, short, fused at apex.
Capsule with stellate hairs below bristles up to 5 mm long, dehiscent.
Distribution and occurrence: Australia: 33 species, all mainland States and the Northern Territory; 5 species in New South Wales
Text by B.J. Conn (February 2013)
Taxon concept: Wilkins and Whitlock (2011) Australian Systematic Botany 24: 284-349
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Staminodes three between each stamen, all narrowly spathulate, petaloid, glabrous; leaf with apex acute; pedicels articulated; capsules with conspicuous, triangular wings | 2 |
| Staminodes 1–3 between each stamen, with central or single staminode petaloid, ovate or narrowly triangular; lateral staminodes (when present) terete,linear or clavate and apical third minutely papillose; leaf with apex obtuse to subacute; pedicels not articulated; capsules lacking conspicuous wings | 4 |
| 2 | Stems and pedicels with conspicuous, red-tipped, clavate, glandular trichomes, much longer than stellate hairs | Androcalva viscidula |
| Stems and pedicels without glandular trichomes, or glandular trichomes inconspicuous and shorter than, or as long as stellate hairs
Back to 1 | 3 |
| 3 | Stem and flowering stems with white, stellate hairs, or hairs white with pale brown centres, c. 0.5 mm long | Androcalva fraseri |
| Stem and flowering stems with long golden to ferruginous stellate hairs, c. 1 mm long
Back to 2 | Androcalva rossii |
| 4 | Petals with ligule narrower at apex than at base, either narrowly triangular, triangular, ovate or narrowly ovate with apex blunt, or narrowly oblong with base only very slightly broader base. Petal base (when lateral lobes flattened) 2–4.5mm across | Androcalva rosea |
| Petal with ligule broader towards apex than base, orbicular, suborbicular, obovate, spathulate; petal base (when flattened) less than 2.5 mm wide
Back to 1 | Androcalva procumbens |
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