A small genus of evergreen trees and shrubs, natives of New Zealand, Tasmania, New Caledonia, China, and Chile. Leaves digitately compound, trifoliolate or reduced to a single leaflet. Some New Zealand species go through a juvenile phase in which the leaves are markedly different from those of adult plants; the most notable instance – P. crassifolius – is treated below. Flowers in compound umbels, or in umbels arranged in the form of a panicle or raceme; pedicels jointed. Calyx entire or toothed. Petals five, valvate. Stamens five. Ovary with two to five locules. Styles two to five, more or less connate. Fruit fleshy, subglobose or compressed.
Pseudopanax, as here understood, includes species previously included in Nothopanax and Neopanax (see: W. R. Philipson, N.Z. Journ. Bot., Vol. III (1965), pp. 333-8; H. H. Allan, Fl. N.Z., Vol. I (1961), p. 433).