Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Hemiparasitic perennial or occasionally annual herbs, rarely shrubs.
Stems:
Stems decumbent to erect.
Roots:
Leaves:
Leaves simple.
Alternate.
Base sessile.
Margins entire to pinnately divided.
Petioles absent.
Stipules absent.
Flowers:
Flowers in short to elongate spikes or racemes, bracts gradually differing from the leaves, becoming shorter, broader, more incised, and colored toward apex.
Flowers bisexual (perfect).
Calyx cylindrical, subequally 4-lobed or unequally 2–cleft by connation of lobes, each lobe bilobed or entire, sometimes accrescent, the lobes often the same color as bracts.
Corolla usually greenish, strongly bilabiate, cylindrical, elongate and narrow, upper lip hooded and beak-like, lobes connate from base to apex and enclosing the anthers, lower lip overlapping upper lip in bud, 3-lobed, sometimes somewhat saccate.
Stamens 4, in 2 pairs; anther sacs unequally placed, the outer one attached medially, the smaller one attached by its apex.
Ovary superior; stigma capitate, occasionally 2-lobed.
Fruit:
Capsules ± symmetrical; loculicidal; oblong–ovoid to globose.
Seeds numerous; seed coat loose and conspicuously reticulate.
Ploidy:
Habitat:
Elevation Range: