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Stamens arising at various levels on the corolla tube, the anterior 2 only fertile; lateral staminodes usually present, the posterior one often missing; filaments variable in length, often thickened in the middle; anthers with divaricate, rarely parallel, lobes, the lines of dehiscence confluent at the apex, usually cohering face to face.
Capsule more or less cylindrical, varying from short and broad (5 mm.) to long and slender (180 mm.), twisting spirally before maturity, dehiscing by a loculicidal slit and slight untwisting of the spiral, when old sometimes splitting into 4 valves.
Ovary usually unilocular, but sometimes apparently bilocular by fusion of the T-shaped intrusive placentae; ovules restricted to the recurved tips of the placentae; ovary narrowed, often very gradually, into the style; stigma variable.
Inflorescences axillary or apparently from base of lamina or from leaf-stalk; cymose, branching, sometimes more or less one-sided, the flowers paired, rarely reduced to two flowers or only one.
Herbs, rarely subshrubs; caulescent, erect or creeping, or acaulescent, rosulate or unifoliate; annual, perennial or monocarpic.
Calyx usually divided to the base into 5 segments, more rarely with a distinct tube and 5 teeth.
Seeds numerous, small, with very little endosperm, reticulate or verruculose.
Seedlings with the cotyledons becoming unequal after germination.
Corolla gamopetalous, 5-lobed, most often distinctly bilabiate.
Disk annular or shortly cupular.
