Sesamum L.

Erect or decumbent herbs, beset with very short, white, mucigenous hairs, moreover often with much longer articulate hairs. Leaves opposite or the upper spirally arranged; the larger ones sometimes compound or deeply divided, the smaller simple, entire or shallowly serrate-dentate. Flowers solitary in the axils of the higher leaves. Calyx persistent, small. Corolla-tube decurved, gradually widened upwards, at the back of the base subgibbous, inside beneath the insertion-point of the filaments with a ring of hairs; lobes of limb patent, rounded. Stamens 4, didynamous; anthers free, with a bifid base; cells ± parallel; connective gland-tipped; staminode minute or absent. Disk equal. Ovary (in normal flowers) 2-celled; cells halved by a parietal radial false dissepiment; each compartment containing many 1-seriate superposed ovules; stigma (in normal flowers) 2-lamellate. Capsule oblong or slightly broadened upwards, acuminate or obtuse-rounded, obtusely quadrangular with 4 longitudinal grooves, unarmed, dehiscing longitudinally from the top more or less deeply down; the false dissepiments splitting longitudinally. Seeds in each compartment numerous, horizontal or suboblique, much compressed, obovate with a rounded apex, in their basal part or throughout their length margined or very narrowly winged; testa on the broad surfaces either smooth, finely scrobiculate or transversely ribbed. Seeds often rich in oil.