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Herbs [or shrubs], perennial, prostrate to erect, with cystoliths. Leaves sessile or petiolate; leaf blade margin entire, crenulate, or dentate. Inflorescences axillary or terminal, reduced or expanded dichasia, sometimes forming dichasiate spikes, thyrses, or panicles, sometimes reduced to a solitary flower; bracts opposite, usually green, margin entire; bracteoles 2 [or absent]. Flowers [sessile or] subsessile to pedicellate. Calyx deeply 5-lobed; lobes equal or subequal. Corolla funnel-shaped; tube basally with a narrowly cylindric portion, usually expanded apically into a distinct throat; limb 5-lobed; lobes usually ovate to orbicular, equal to unequal in size, contorted in bud. Stamens 4, didynamous, usually included in corolla tube; filaments sometimes connate in pairs at base; anthers 2-thecous; thecae equal, parallel to subsagittate, muticous at base; staminode 1 or absent. Ovary with up to 10 ovules per locule; style usually included in corolla tube or slightly exserted; stigma 2-lobed, lobes equal or unequal. Capsule stipitate or not stipitate, [4-]12-26-seeded; retinacula present; septa with attached retinacula remaining attached (or separating in Ruellia blechum) to inner wall of mature capsule. Seeds discoid, usually pubescent with hygroscopic trichomes.
Perennial herbs or shrubs. Leaves petiolate, elliptic, ovate, ovate lanceolate, oblong spathulate, acuminate or obtuse, the margins entire, slightly undulate or repand crenulate. Flowers often large and showy, borne either singly or in various inflorescence forms which are either terminal or axillary or both, regular, sometimes curved, pedicellate; bracts one or absent; bracteoles 2 or absent. Flowers with the calyx 5-merous, mostly equal; corolla red, yellow, white or purple, funnelform, salverform or sometimes saccate, the tubes usually narrow and the expanded portion often campanulate, with five spreading, obtuse lobes; stamens four, didynamous, the anthers 2-celled, muticous at the base; stigma lobes unequal. Capsule oblong or clavate, the dissepiment remains attached to the capsule wall at maturity; seeds flattened with a rim of sticky mucilaginous hairs when wet, glabrous when dry.
Cal regular, the narrow lobes much longer than the tube; cor large, funnelform, the tube equaling or much longer than the campanulate or obconic throat, the limb slightly oblique, spreading, subequally 5-lobed; stamens 4, weakly united in pairs toward the base, the lower pair somewhat the longer; a staminodium commonly present; fr clavate or obovate; seeds 3–8 per locule, compressed, suborbicular; ours perennial herbs with large blue-lavender fls in axillary few-fld cymes or terminating short axillary branches. 300+, mostly trop. and warm-temp.
