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Cal mostly 10-ribbed, with equal, firm, spinescent teeth; cor bilabiate, the upper lip entire, subgaleately rounded, the lower lip 3-lobed, and with a pair of prominent projections (“nipples”) on the upper side near the base; stamens 4, ascending under the upper lip, the lower pair the longer; pollen-sacs set end to end, with a transverse line of contact, at the expanded summit of the filament, the proximal one with its back to the filament, the distal one surpassing the filament; each pollen-sac opening by 2 valves, the larger valve smooth and next to the filament, the smaller valve minutely bristly-ciliate and thrown back from the tip, remaining attached at the line of contact of the pollen-sacs; annuals with toothed or entire lvs, the small fls crowded in dense verticils in the upper axils. 10, temp. Eurasia.
Annual herbs. Lvs simple, toothed. Verticels in dense, terminal and axillary whorls, the uppermost crowded, the lower distant. Bracts resembling, but smaller than, foliage lvs; bracteoles subulate, pungent or spine-tipped. Calyx tubular-campanulate, not gibbous at base, 5-toothed; teeth rather unequal, pungent. Corolla 2-lipped; upper lip hooded; lower lip 3-lobed, with 2 conic projections at base; tube = or much > calyx, straight, with ring of hairs inside. Stamens lying beneath upper lip; anthers ciliate, parallel. Style gynobasic. Nutlets bluntly trigonous.
