Gaudium
Peter G.WilsonShrubs or small trees, with smooth and shedding, fibrous or papery layered bark; young stems silky, glabrescent, with or without stem flanges or grooves near the base of leaves. Leaves alternate. Flowers actinomorphic, bisexual or rarely male only, axillary, sessile or pedicellate, usually solitary. Petals 5, broadly obovate, deciduous; sepals 5, persistent in fruit; stamens mostly 15–35, shorter than the petals, anthers with a gland near the connective, versatile, opening by slits. Fruit a loculicidal capsule, thin-walled and deciduous or semi-persistent and with a semi-succulent hypanthium, usually 3–5-locular, valves not or hardly woody, often somewhat succulent, opening at the apex; seeds ovate, with reticulate surface pattern, sometimes with loose cells or wings along the margins.
22 species, predominantly eastern Australian, 1 endemic to WA.
Species in this genus were previously included in Leptospermum, from which they are now distinguished by seed shape and surface, and the deciduous, non-woody fruits. Species native to Victoria can further be distinguished by the at least somewhat hairy ovary apex or valves (c.f. glabrous in Leptospermum).
Spinning