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Herbs (perennial or rarely annual), or rarely shrubs, sometimes lianous. Stems usually branched. Petiole base slightly expanded or auriculate, clasping or nearly clasping. Inflorescences spicate-racemose; spikelets 1-flowered; bracts and bractlets herbaceous, greenish. Flowers conspicuous. Pedicel very short, persistent. Calyx tubular, ribs herbaceous and with stalked glands, membranous between ribs; limb not expanded but enlarging after anthesis; lobes minute, usually triangular. Corolla salverform, tube much longer than calyx, limb rotate, lobes apically rounded or acuminate. Stamens hypogynous, as long as corolla tube; filaments basally expanded; anthers linear. Ovary ellipsoid, ovoid, or pyriform. Styles connate, terminally 5-branched; stigma on inner surface of style branches, covered with stalked or sessile glands.
Perennial herbs or undershrubs, rarely annual, often straggling or subscandent. Leaves spread, entire, older ones often below pale-lepidote by excreted carbonates, or reduced on the flowering stems; petiole often semi-amplexicaulous-auriculate at the base. Flowers in terminal racemes or spikes, often united in a leafy panicle, blue, rosa, white or violet, ephemeral, not caducous. Calyx tubular, outside often with sessile or stalked glands, teeth erect, not enlarged in fruit. Corolla funnel-shaped, lobes spreading. Stamens free, broadened at the base. Style short, with 5 branches. Capsule included in the persistent calyx and (often twisted) corolla; pericarp thin, hardened above, circumscissile near the base, caducous part often splitting towards the apex with 5 valves.
and 2 bracteoles, the bract with chalk glands; calyx tubular, the lobes erect, membranous between the ribs, the ribs bearing stalked mucilage glands; corolla salverform, the tube slender, long exserted; stamens hypogynous, only slightly ex-serted, the filaments dilated basally, the anthers linear; styles filiform, usually homostylous, partly connate basally, stigmatic along their inner surfaces. Fruit an achene, utricle, or capsule, membranous, indehiscent or dehiscent circum-cissally or into 5 sometimes apically connate valves, included in the calyx; in Panama the fruit a capsule, the valves separating first near the middle.
Herbs or subshrubs, perennial, the stems often scandent or reclining; branches striate, glabrous, sparsely dotted with chalk glands. Leaves alternate, dotted with chalk-secreting glands, sessile and auriculate-amplexicaul, or petiolate, the petiole amplexicaul and sometimes auricled basally, paler below and lepidote-appearing from chalk secretions. Inflorescences racemose or basally paniculate and gradu-ally becoming racemose toward the apex, the axis with mucilage glands or eglandular, pubescent or glabrous. Flowers pedicellate, each subtended by a bract
Perennial herbs or shrubby and occasionally climbing
Calyx tubular with stalked glands
Flowers racemose.
Leaves alternate
