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Herbs, undershrubs, or shrubs. Leaves opposite, cauline or almost all radical, simple, 3-foliolate, pinnate or 1-2-pinnatifid. Flowers small to large and showy; verticillasters in terminal and axillary racemes. Bracts small or large, sometimes brilliantly coloured in cultivated forms. Calyx campanulate or tubular, 9—11-nerved, 2-lipped; upper lip entire or 3-fid; lower lip notched or 2-toothed. Corolla 2-lipped; tube naked or annulate within; upper lip erect; lower lip 3-lobed, central lobe usually wider than the lateral ones, entire or emarginate. Fertile stamens 2, representing the lower pair; filaments short, articulating with a slender connective, and sometimes produced beyond the joint; connective linear, transverse, with an upper ascending arm which bears a linear fertile anther-cell, and a lower straight or deflexed branch bearing a reduced anther-cell or empty. Disk usually enlarged anteriorly. Style shortly 2-fid; the lobes usually subulate, equal or the lower larger, sometimes flattened. Nutlets ovoid, often triquetrous, smooth.
Annual or perennial herbs or small shrubs, often strongly aromatic. Lvs simple, entire to pinnatisect. Infl. terminal, of (1)-2-many-flowered verticels forming spikes, racemes, panicles or occasionally more simple cymose structures; pedicels usually short or fls subsessile. Bracts usually different from lvs, occasionally large and coloured; bracteoles usually small. Calyx 2-lipped, not gibbous at base; upper lip entire or 3-toothed; lower 2-toothed. Corolla 2-lipped, usually hairy outside, white to blue or purple, red, or rarely yellow; tube straight or curved; lower lip 2-3-lobed with middle lobe largest; upper lip straight or falcate, sometimes hooded. Stamens 2, inserted on the corolla throat; connective long and slender, or sometimes short, articulating with the usually shorter filament; one arm of connective with a fertile anther, the other arm sterile and often flattened distally. Nutlets ± trigonous, smooth, often mucilaginous when wet.
Herbs, annual or perennial, half-shrubs or shrubs, glabrous to pubescent. Leaves simple or rarely pinnately compound, opposite, petiolate, pinnately-nerved, entire or generally dentate, glabrous or pubescent, the hairs frequently uniseriate. Inflorescences verticils, each with 4 or more flowers, or rarely the flowers solitary and opposite, the bracts deciduous or persistent, sometimes showy. Flowers sub-sessile to shortly pedicellate, the bracteoles generally not apparent; calyx tubular or campanulate, bilabiate, rarely the teeth subequal, the upper lip generally entire or sometimes 3-lobed, 3-or 5-9-veined, the lower lip 2-lobed and generally 6-1 0-veined, sometimes with glandular capitate hairs; corolla tubular, zygomorphic,
of 5 united petals, blue, white, or red, naked within or with 2-4 papillae or a ring of hairs above the ovary, bilabiate, the upper lip generally entire and plane, the lower 3-lobed; stamens 2, staminodia sometimes present, mounted on the corolla throat, included in the upper lip or exserted, the filaments distinct, the connective elongate, the lower portion straight, retrorsely toothed or geniculate, the anthers generally with one functional theca; ovary 4-lobed, provided with a dis-tinct gynobase generally forming a nectarium, the style arising from the gynobase, long and slender, bifid near the tip, the branches ? equal, or the posterior branch longer. Nutlets (1-)4, attached at the base, oblong-ovate, brown.
Cal tubular to campanulate, 2-lipped, 10–15-nerved, the upper lip entire to 3-lobed, the lower deeply 2-lobed; cor 2-lipped, the upper lip straight or arched, often subgaleate, the lower 3-lobed; stamens 2, ascending under the upper lip and sometimes surpassing it; filaments short; connective much elongate, attached at or near its middle to the filament, bearing a single pollen-sac (half anther) at the upper end, the lower end either sterile or with an imperfect half-anther; ours herbs, the medium-sized to large fls in verticils subtended by usually much reduced bracteal lvs, forming a terminal, sometimes interrupted, spike-like infl. 500, cosmop.
