Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Erect annual or perennial herbs.
Stems:
Roots:
Leaves:
Leaves simple.
Opposite.
Blades often lobed or palmately to pinnately dissected.
Petiolate.
Stipules absent.
Flowers:
Flowers 6 to numerous in dense axillary verticillasters, bracts lobed or coarsely dentate.
Calyx actinomorphic, turbinate, 5–nerved, 5-toothed, the teeth ± equal, spinose, splitting longitudinally, usually persistent or sometimes only ventral 1/2 persistent.
Corolla zygomorphic, bilabiate, upper lip entire, erect, convex, lower lip 3-lobed, median lobe obcordate; nectary disk symmetrical.
Stamens 4, in 2 pairs, ascending the upper corolla lip, lower pair slightly longer; anthers sacs coherent; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits.
Ovary superior, 2-carpellate, placentation basal-axile; ovules 1 per ovary lobe; style 1, cleft, the branches equal; stigmas 2.
Fruit:
Nutlets 4; each 1-seeded; 3-angled;–dry; smooth; apex truncate.
Seeds with endosperm absent or scanty and oily.
Ploidy:
Habitat:
Elevation Range: