Kohleria Regel

Terrestrial herbs, subshrubs, or shrubs from scaly rhizomes; stems usually erect or decumbent, terete, green to reddish brown, hirsute with multicellular hairs. Leaves opposite or in whorls of 3-4, those of a pair nearly equal to un-equal, pilose or hirsute, the blades thickened, ovate, lanceolate, or elliptic, serrate or crenate, dark green above, light green to purplish below, the lateral veins 6-9 arching toward the apex; petioles short or long. Inflorescences with flowers solitary, fasciculate to umbellate, usually numerous in the upper leaf axils, often appearing racemose or spicate with reduced leaves; peduncles often short with long pedicels, green or reddish, hirsute. Flowers protandrous, somewhat zygo-morphic, 1-4 per peduncle; floral tube turbinate to globose, hirsute; calyx lobes thick, erect to recurved, equalling or longer than the floral tube, pubescent on both the surfaces; corolla of 5 petals connate into a tube, erect or oblique in the calyx, the limb 5-lobed, bilabiate or regular, usually spotted or striped, the tube usually ventricose at the middle or toward the throat, or campanulate above a narrow base, red hirsute outside, sparsely pubescent inside; fertile stamens 4, adnate to the base of the corolla tube, the anthers at first coherent, later often becoming free, thecae distinct, dehiscent by longitudinal slits, a staminode usually present; disc lobate or of 5 glands, free or with 2 united; ovary more than / inferior, the style pubescent, the stigma bilobed, the ovules numerous on both the surfaces of the placental lamellae. Fruit a dry capsule dehiscing into 2 valves, the apex conic or rostrate; seeds numerous, fusiform, striate, dark brown.

Uses: Species and cultivars of Kohleria are commonly cultivated in temperate parts of the world as ornamentals. Plant parts are used in folk medicine in Andean countries (Kvist 1986).