Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Annual or perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems erect or ascending to decumbent, often pubescent.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Margins usually crenate or serrate. Petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in verticillasters, these arranged in dense or interrupted, terminal, racemose or spike-like inflorescences, or sometimes also in the upper leaf axils, each flower +/- bracteolate. Calyx usually campanulate, 5–10–nerved, 5-toothed, the teeth slightly unequal, erect or spreading, splitting longitudinally, usually persistent or sometimes only ventral 1/2 persistent. Corolla strongly bilabiate, tubular, straight or curved, upper lip erect, often arched, concave, entire or emarginate, lower lip spreading, 3-lobed, median lobe larger than lateral ones, nectary disk often present at base of ovary, annular or developed on anterior side only. Stamens 4, in 2 pairs, ascending the upper corolla lip, aligned with the sinuses, equal in length or upper pair longer; anther sacs divergent; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, 2-carpellate; ovules 1 per ovary lobe, placentation basal-axile; style 1; stigmas 2.

Fruit: Nutlets 4; 1-seeded; ovoid to cylindrical. Seeds with endosperm absent or scanty and oily.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: