See text Eidothea is a genus of two species of rainforest trees in New South Wales and Queensland, in eastern Australia, constituting part of the plant family Proteaceae.

[5] In 1883 German-Australian botanist Ferdinand von Mueller named fossil seeds Xylocaryon lockii from Miocene age sediments excavated in old gold mining sites in Victoria; they match those of Eidothea and are thought to represent the modern plant.

[6][7] Eidothea is known from geographic areas separated by more than 1,000 km (620 mi), the mountains of the Wet Tropics of north-eastern Queensland, the Nightcap Range area of north-eastern New South Wales and as the fossils from southern Victoria, much further to the south,[2][8] underlining the fact that Australia's rainforests are tiny remnants of ancient rainforests that millions of years ago covered large parts of Australia.

Gondwana consisted of what are now the continents of Australia, Africa, South America and Antarctica, as well as smaller bits and pieces such as New Zealand, New Caledonia and Madagascar.

Gondwana began splitting up over 120 million years ago and the fragments carried a diverse array of plants and animals with them, including a variety of lineages of the Proteaceae.