Plants in the genus Melichrus are shrubs with narrowly egg-shaped leaves crowded at the ends of branches and bell-shaped or urn-shaped flowers arranged singly in leaf bases, the fruit a drupe.

Plants in the genus Melichrus are low-lying to erect shrubs with branchlets covered with soft hairs and prominent leaf scars.

The leaves are narrowly egg-shaped, more or less sessile and crowded at the ends of branches with parallel striations on the lower surface.

The flowers are arranged singly in leaf axils and are more or less sessile, with bracts grading to larger egg-shaped or circular bracteoles.

[2][3] The genus Melichrus was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown in his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen.