Enicostema Blume

Herbs, perennial, erect, rarely creeping, occasionally branched at the base, glabrous throughout; stems terete to angulate, frequently winged, often suc-culent. Leaves cauline, narrowly ovate to linear, sessile, often succulent. Inflores-cences + dense, axillary-clustered. Flowers small, 5-merous, sessile to subsessile; calyx narrowly campanulate to urceolate, carinate, the lobes narrowly ovate, fused at the base; corolla cylindrical becoming infundibular above, the lobes small, contorted, ? lax; stamens inserted at the middle of the corolla tube, the filaments filiform with a small double-hooded scale at the base, the anthers introrse, ob-long, erect, apiculate; pistil usually included, the ovary 1-locular, the placenta slightly intruded, the style short, the stigma capitate. Capsules septicidally 2-valved; seeds tiny, the testa foveolate. Chromosone number x = 19. Pollen grains in monads, radially symmetrical, isopolar, suboblate to oblate spheroidal, the amb rounded-triangular, 24-26 x 26-31 u, 3-colporate, the colpi short with acute or obtuse ends, the colpus membrane smooth, ora rounded to lolongate, well delimited, the diameter of apocolpia 20 u; exine 2 u thick; sexine as thick as nexine or thinner, finely reticulate or OL-pattern (E. verticillatum).