English: Box-leaf waxflower.
Name: Philotheca should have been written Psilotheca after the Ancient Greek words psilos meaning "bare", "smooth", "bald" or "naked" and theke meaning "case", "container", "envelope" or "sheath",referring to "the smooth tube of the stamens".
Genus: 50 species.
Region: Australia, New South Wales.
Habitat: in heath on sandstone, in coastal areas.
BotanyShrub; 1.3 m high; glabrous or with tiny, simple hairs.
Stem: branchlets with short, stiff hairs.
Leaves: simple; alternate; round to broadly elliptical or egg-shaped, oblong; narrower end towards the base; 6 to 12 mm long; wedge-shaped or heart-shaped near the base.
Flowers: solitary; white to pink; on the ends of branchlets; pedicel 2 to 4 mm long; sepals 5, broadly triangular, fleshy, 1 to 1.5 mm long; petals 5, white to pink, broadly elliptical, 8 to 15 mm long; stamens 10, free from each other, with a prominent appendage on the anther, curving inwards over the ovary;
ovary has five carpels, fused at their bases; flowering from winter to spring.
Fruit: 7 mm long; with a beak about 3 mm long.
Seeds: 2–5 mm long; released explosively.
TaxonomyMany plants formerly in Eriostemon are now in this genus.