Torenia L.

Erect or decumbent herbs, freely branching, the stems angled and sulcate, sometimes pubescent. Leaves opposite, serrate or crenate, petiolate, pinnately veined. Inflorescences 1-3 flowers in a leaf axil, sometimes geminate or ternate, the pedicel angled, subtended by a basal, linear bract. Flowers with the calyx united to near the top, wing angled, sometimes conspicuously so, somewhat accrescent in fruit, enclosing the capsule, the corolla campanulate to tubular salverform, the upper lip erect, the lower (closed) lip with 3 rotund lobes, bearded in the throat, stamens 4 in 2 pairs, the filaments inserted near the top of the tube, the dorsal pair arching upwards and holding the anthers above the stigma and the ventral pair, the anthers alike or the dorsal pair reduced, the connectives coherent in pairs, the thecae oblong to linear, divaricate, held apart by the connectives, a staminode present; ovary smooth, the style straight, the stigmas flattened together. Capsule dehiscing septicidally to the base, the placenta linear, conspicuously winged by the stramineous septum; seeds globose, yellow, tuberculate.