Plants in this genus are shrubs with simple leaves arranged alternately along the stems, flowers that usually have five sepals, five petals and ten stamens that curve inwards over the ovary.

The leaves are arranged alternately along the stems, narrow oblong to almost cylindrical and sessile or on a very short petiole.

[2][3][4][5] The genus Philotheca was first formally described in 1816 by Edward Rudge from a specimen collected near Port Jackson and the description was published in Transactions of the Linnean Society of London.

[6][7] The first species Rudge described was P. australis but this name is considered a nomen illegitimum and a taxonomic synonym of Philotheca salsolifolia by the Australian Plant Census.

[8] The name Philotheca should have been written Psilotheca after the Ancient Greek words psilos meaning "bare", "smooth", "bald" or "naked"[9]: 123  and theke meaning "case", "container", "envelope" or "sheath",[9]: 118  referring to "the smooth tube of the stamens".