Derivation: Named in honour of Gustav Kunze, 1793-1851, Professor of Botany in Leipzig.

Synonymy: Tillospermum Salisb., Monthly Rev. ser. 2, 75:74 (1814); Pentagonaster Klotzsch in Otto & Dietrich, Allg. Gartenz. 4:113, 9 (1836); Salisia Lindley, Sketch Veg. Swan Riv. Col. x (1840).

Common name: Consp. 175 (1828), nom. cons. prop.

Description:
Shrubs with alternate petiolate simple entire leaves.

Flowers in terminal heads but with the terminal bud usually continuing growth after the fruit have been shed; bracts imbricate; hypanthium tapering towards the base and about 4 times longer than the ovary; sepals 5, persistent; petals 5, broadly obovate to orbicular, shortly clawed; stamens free, arranged in 2 more or less distinct rows on the rim of the hypanthium, much longer than the sepals and petals; anthers medifixed, with a gland below the 2 cells that open by slits; ovary with 2 or 3 or to 5 cells outside S.Aust.; the placentas peltate on the upper part of the central axis bearing at least 16 pendulous ovules, fewer outside S.Aust.; style simple with a capitate stigma.

Fruit fleshy, indehiscent, a dry capsule outside S.Aust.; seed oblong-reniform, scarcely compressed.

Distribution:  About 36 species in temperate Australia and New Zealand.

Biology: No text

Taxonomic notes: A proposal has been published to conserve the hitherto used name Kunzea Reichb. (1828) over the earlier but never adopted name Tillospermum Salisb. (1814) which will automatically conserve the name over Kunzia Sprengel (1818) in the Rosaceae.

Author: Prepared by H. R. Toelken