Most species have compound leaves composed of three leaflets and all have ten stamens which are free from each other and a distinctive arrangement of their sepals.

[3][4]The genus Gompholobium was first formally described in 1798 by James Edward Smith and the description was published in Transactions of the Linnean Society of London.

[2] The genus name is derived from the Ancient Greek words gomphos, meaning "bolt", "peg", or "nail"[6]: 545  and lobos meaning a "capsule" or "pod"[6]: 118  referring to "the inflated shape of the seed pods".

The following is a list of species accepted by the Australian Plant Census as at December 2024:[8] Toxicity of plants of the genus was suspected and proven to be fatal to sheep, goats and other livestock introduced by the pastoralists at the Swan River Colony.

This was reported by James Drummond in Hooker's London journal of botany 1842.