Inflorescences axillary or terminal, cymose or apparently racemose or reduced to single flowers. Flowers bisexual, 5- or rarely 4-merous. Sepals 5 or rarely 4, free. Petals 5 or rarely 4, imbricate or rarely valvate, not persistent in fruit. Stamens 10 or rarely 8, free or cohering at the base in a tube but free above, erect or pyramidally arranged and incurved over the ovary; filaments fused or free and pilose or ciliate; anthers with either a small or prominent glabrous white apiculum. Carpels 5 or rarely 4, basally fused or ± free, usually with a beak formed from the sterile apex of the carpel; styles fused, arising from below or at the middle of the carpels; stigma scarcely differentiated from style, capitate or shortly 5-lobed; ovules 2 in each carpel.
Fruit of 1–5 cocci; cocci not transversely ridged, with rounded or beaked apices; seeds released forcibly from dehiscing cocci, dull to shiny, dark brown to black.
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Stamens with filaments fused for at least half their length, free portion of filaments pilose. | 2 |
| Stamens free, filaments usually hairy from base, sometimes cohering by intertwined hairs. | 4 |
| 2 | Anthers ± visible beyond the spreading to ± appressed long hairs on the filaments, anthers glabrous. | 3 |
| Anthers concealed by the long upwardly appressed hairs on the filaments, anthers with an apical tuft of long hairs.
Back to 1 | Philotheca reichenbachii |
| 3 | Petals 6–12 mm long, pink to purple; leaves 5–15 mm long, 1–1.5 mm wide, glabrous . | Philotheca salsolifolia |
| Petals 4–5 mm long, white to pink; leaves 3–9 mm long, c. 0.5 mm wide, sparsely ciliate or glabrous.
Back to 2 | Philotheca ciliata |
| 4 | Flowers terminal, or if axillary then with pubescent petals; hairs (if present) on stems scattered or in longitudinal lines; stipules present or absent. | 5 |
| Flowers axillary or in axillary cymes; petals glabrous or sparsely and finely hispid outside; hairs if present on stems scattered; stipules absent.
Back to 1 | 10 |
| 5 | Flowers axillary; leaves 8–20 mm long. | Philotheca linearis |
| Flowers terminal; leaves 1.5–12 mm long.
Back to 4 | 6 |
| 6 | Leaves 1.5–2.5 mm long; petals c. 2 mm long; sepals varying in shape and size on the same flower. | Philotheca cuticularis |
| Leaves 3–12 mm long; petals 4–10 mm long; sepals similar on the same flower.
Back to 5 | 7 |
| 7 | Petals pubescent outside, at least towards margin. | 8 |
| Petals glabrous outside.
Back to 6 | 9 |
| 8 | Petals c. 9 mm long; leaves needle-like. | Philotheca ericifolia |
| Petals <6 mm long; leaves fleshy and ± terete to flat, narrow-oblong to broad-elliptic to ovate.
Back to 7 | Philotheca difformis |
| 9 | Leaves and sepals with a dark-coloured, gland-like apiculum; staminal filaments evenly attenuate; stipules, if present, minute. | Philotheca brevifolia |
| Leaves and sepals without a gland-like apiculum; at least some staminal filaments abruptly narrowed near apex to a subulate tip; stipules small.
Back to 7 | Philotheca angustifolia |
| 10 | Leaves ± terete to narrow-oblong or narrow-ovate, concave above or with margins tightly incurved. | 11 |
| Leaves oblong to elliptic or obovate, often broadly so, if narrow then with recurved, crenulate margins.
Back to 4 | 12 |
| 11 | Stems glabrous; leaves mostly >2 cm long. | Philotheca myoporoides |
| Stems either finely hispid or glabrous and then leaves <2 cm long.
Back to 10 | Philotheca scabra |
| 12 | Plant glabrous. | 13 |
| Plant ± finely bristly or shortly pubescent.
Back to 10 | 15 |
| 13 | Pedicels usually pedunculate (sometimes very shortly so), with a whorl of bracteoles at base. | Philotheca myoporoides |
| Pedicels sessile with several small imbricate basal bracts.
Back to 12 | 14 |
| 14 | Leaves >5 mm wide, flat, >3 cm long; carpels united at periphery; flowers 5-merous. | Philotheca trachyphylla |
| Leaves <4 mm wide, margins ± recurved, <2 cm long; carpels free to base; flowers 4-merous.
Back to 13 | Philotheca virgata |
| 15 | Margins of leaves revolute, glandular-crenate. | Philotheca hispidula |
| Margins of leaves flat to slightly recurved, entire to glandular-crenate.
Back to 12 | 16 |
| 16 | Leaves not mucronate, broad-obovate to obcordate, ± flat. | Philotheca obovalis |
| Leaves mucronate, broad-ovate to obovate, flat or slightly concave above.
Back to 15 | Philotheca buxifolia |
