Common Name: Sandalwoods, Quandongs
Description: Shrubs or small trees.
Leaves mostly opposite, sometimes alternate or whorled, pinnately veined.
Flowers bisexual in terminal or axillary racemes or panicles, rarely in small umbels, pedicellate with caducous bracts. Tepals 4, fleshy, with hair tufts at the base behind the stamens. Stamens 4, usually longer than the scale-like projections of the disc between the lobes. Ovary half-inferior or inferior; ovules 2–4; style short with a 2–4-lobed stigma.
Fruit a globose drupe with a succulent or firm mesocarp and woody often wrinkled endocarp; 1-seeded; tepals persistent or leaving a circular scar.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 25 species, Malesia to Australia, Polynesia, Hawaii & Juan Fernandez. Australia: 6 species (5 species endemic), Qld, N.S.W., Vic., N.T., S.A. W.A.
Text by B. Wiecek
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Leaves discolorous with recurved to revolute margins | Santalum obtusifolium |
| Leaves concolorous or slightly discolorous, flat | 2 |
| 2 | Flowers 6–8 mm long; disc with prominent lobes; drupe 7–15 mm diam., purple | Santalum lanceolatum |
| Flowers 2–3.5 mm long; disc not prominently lobed; drupe 15–25 mm wide, red, red-brown or greenish
Back to 1 | 3 |
| 3 | Leaves mostly 3–9 cm long, 3–15 mm wide, always opposite; fruit bright red, rarely yellow; tepals more or less persistent | Santalum acuminatum |
| Leaves mostly 1.5–3.5 cm long, 1.5–4 mm wide, alternate, opposite or in threes; fruit red-brown or green; tepals caducous
Back to 2 | Santalum murrayanum |
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