Macadamia is a
genus of four species of trees indigenous to
Australia and constituting part of the plant family
Proteaceae. They are native to north eastern
New South Wales and central and south eastern
Queensland. The tree is commercially important for its fruit, the macadamia nut or simply macadamia. Other names include Queensland nut, bush nut, maroochi nut, bauple nut, and Hawaii nut. In
Australian Aboriginal languages, the fruit is known by names such as
bauple,
gyndl,
jindilli, and
boombera. Previously, more species, with
disjunct distributions, were named as members of this genus
Macadamia. Genetics and
morphological studies more recently published in 2008 show they have separated from this genus
Macadamia, correlating less closely than thought from earlier morphological studies. The species previously named in this
Macadamia genus may still be referred to overall by the descriptive, non-scientific name of macadamia; their disjunct distributions and current scientific names are:
- New Caledonia endemic genus Virotia in 1975 having only the type species, then by 2008 all six endemic species
- North eastern Queensland, Australian endemic genus and species Catalepidia heyana in 1995
- North eastern Queensland and Cape York Peninsula, Australia, three endemic species of Lasjia in 2008; in Australia still informally described as northern macadamias
- Sulawesi (Indonesia) two endemic species of Lasjia in 2008, based on the 1952 name M. hildebrandii and the 1995 name M. erecta