Perennial or annual herbs, subshrubs or lianes; indumentum of simple trichomes. Leaves opposite or whorled, simple, pinnatifid or pinnate, petiolate or sessile; margins often toothed, sometimes joined at the base; stipules absent. Inflorescences in paired cymes or thyrses, or sometimes reduced to a solitary flower. Flowers bisexual, 4-merous, strongly irregular. Calyx 4-partite, the sepals valvate. Petals fused, 2-lipped (or 3-lobed Calceolaria triandra, not in Australia); upper lip arched or hooded (rarely saccate), entire or 2-parted (in C. triandra), the lower lip usually large and saccate and ± slipper-like or not saccate (in C. triandra and Jovellana, neither in Australia); inner side of lower lip usually with a dense patch of oil-secreting glandular trichomes (elaiophore), the neck often with red or brown spots. Stamens 2 or rarely 3 (in some Calceolaria); filaments free from each other but attached to petals; anthers basifixed, tetrasporangiate, dithecal, the thecae confluent, each anther often dehiscing by a single slit or dehiscing apically (in C. triandra); staminodes absent; nectary absent. Gynoecium of 2 connate carpels. Ovary superior to semi-inferior, placentation axile, locules 2; styles 1, apical, simple; stigma small or capitate or obscurely bilobed, sometimes proximally with stalked glands. Ovules numerous. Fruit a capsule, septicidal and secondarily loculicidal, dehiscing into 4 valves. Seeds small, ellipsoid, with longitudinal and often transverse ridges with an overlying reticulate pattern, seldom colliculate.
Calceolaria (Slipper Flowers) are popular as florists' flowers and indoor pot plants. Generally grown as members of the Calceolaria Herbeohybrida Group, a complex hybrid group thought to include the species C. cana, C. corymbosa and C. crenatifolia. Plants derived from this group are treated as biennials used for bedding or as pot plants (HortFlora). Jovellana is also sometimes cultivated as an ornamental.
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