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Herbs sometimes suffrutescent, rarely shrubs, ? glabrous to roughly pubes-cent. Leaves alternate, sometimes ? fasciculate, pinnately-veined, small to large. Inflorescences spikes or racemes, scorpioid, solitary, paired, or ternate, or the flowers solitary, bracts present or absent. Flowers perfect, + actinomorphic or weakly zygomorphic, pedicellate or subsessile; calyx of 5 sepals, ? connate basally, persistent or deciduous, the lobes linear or lanceolate; corolla mostly salverform to funnelform, white, yellow or blue, the limb 5-lobed, the lobes ? spreading, the throat without appendages; stamens 5, included, borne on the corolla throat, the filaments short or absent, the anthers linear; ovary 4-loculed, lobed or un-lobed, a glandular ring at the base, the style apical, the stigmas sessile or not, peltate or conic. Fruit lobed or unlobed, dry, separating into 2-4 nutlets at maturity; nutlets 1-2-seeded.
Herbs annual or perennial, rarely subshrubs, pubescent or strigose, rarely scabrous. Leaves alternate, less often opposite, sessile or petiolate. Cymes terminal, rarely axillary, unilateral, scorpioid, bracteate or not. Calyx 5-parted. Corolla white or light bluish purple, less often yellow, cylindric or funnelform, strigose outside, glabrous and rarely appressed pubescent inside; throat frequently pubescent; limb 5-parted; lobes orbicular, sometimes linear, margin with folds or undulate. Filaments extremely short; anthers included. Ovary completely or incompletely divided into 4 lobes; ovules 4. Style terminal; stigma conical or ringlike. Fruit nutletlike dry drupes, without evident mesocarp at maturity, endocarp bony, dividing into 4 1-seeded or 2 2-seeded mericarps. Seeds straight or curved, usually with a thin endosperm.
Cor salverform or funnelform, often with 5 small teeth alternating with the lobes; fornices wanting; anthers included, often connivent; ovary entire or merely shallowly lobed, the style terminal (or wanting and the stigma sessile); stigma with a broad, disk-like base commonly surmounted by a mostly short, entire or 2-cleft cone; fr separating at maturity into 4 nutlets, or the nutlets cohering in pairs; herbs (ours) or shrubs with blue or white fls mostly in terminal helicoid cymes, or sometimes solitary on the branches. 200+, mainly of warm regions.
