Sphenostemon is the genus of small evergreen

Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...

 trees or shrubs native to New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

, Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

 (Australia) and New Caledonia

New Caledonia

New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...

.

Taxonomy

The APG II system

APG II system

The APG II system of plant classification is the second, now obsolete, version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy that was published in April 2003 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. It was a revision of the first APG system, published in 1998, and was superseded in 2009...

 places it alone in family Sphenostemonaceae, which is in turn left unplaced as to order in the euasterids II clade (campanulids).

Since the release of the APG II system, new research has suggested a relationship between Sphenostemon and Paracryphia. As a result, the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website

Angiosperm Phylogeny Website

Angiosperm Phylogeny Website is a well-known web site dedicated to research on Angiosperm phylogeny and taxonomy.The site is hosted by the Missouri Botanical Garden website and maintained by researcher Peter F. Stevens, who is a member of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group...

 recommends it be placed in Paracryphiaceae

Paracryphiaceae

Paracryphiaceae is a family of woody shrubs and trees native to Australia, south-east Asia, and New Caledonia. Under the APG II system, this family contains two genera: the monotypic Paracryphia, endemic to New Caledonia; and Quintinia, with 25 species in the Philippines, New Guinea, the east coast...

. This is in turn placed alone in order Paracryphiales.