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Annual or perennial herbs, often diffuse or decumbent; stems sometimes rhizomatous and creeping, but not stoloniferous. Lvs simple, crenate to dentate. Verticels crowded in dense axillary or, less commonly, terminal whorls. Bracts mostly similar to lvs. Calyx tubular or campanulate, 5-nerved, not gibbous at base, with 5 equal or subequal teeth. Corolla white to pink or purple, 2-lipped; upper lip hooded, densely hairy outside; lower lip with the main central lobe obcordate or obovate, with or without small lateral lobes. Stamens lying below upper lip; anther cells divergent. Style gynobasic. Nutlets ± trigonous, truncate at apex.
Cal nearly regular, 5-nerved, the lobes equal or the upper the largest; cor bilabiate, the upper lip entire or 2-lobed, galeate-hooded, the lower spreading, constricted at the base of the enlarged, cleft or emarginate central lobe, the lateral lobes broad and low, seemingly borne on the cor-throat; stamens 4, ascending under the upper lip, the lower pair the longer; pollen-sacs conspicuously hairy, ± divergent or divaricate; nutlets trigonous, truncate above; herbs with toothed or pinnatifid, mostly cordate lvs and white to red or purple fls in verticils of 6–12 subtended by scarcely reduced lvs. 40, temp. Eurasia and n. Afr.
