Photos: Harley, R.

Photos: Harley, R.

Photos: Harley, R.

Photos: Harley, R.

Subfamily

VII. Subfam. Nepetoideae (Dumort.) Luerss. (1882).

VII. 3. Tribe Ocimeae Dumort. (1829).

VII. 3. C. Subtribe Hyptidinae Endlicher (1838).

Description

Subshrubs or perennial herbs, often geoxylic, aromatic and glandular-viscid; leaves simple, toothed; inflorescence thyrsoid, of axillary cymes, pedunculate or not; cymes 1-3- to many-flowered and then in spherical heads; bracts present, narrowly elliptic-lanceolate to linear, in many-flowered cymes often forming a lax involucre; bracteoles as bracts; flowers shortly pedicellate; calyx infundibuliform, straight, actinomorphic, 5-lobed, often purple-tinged and sometimes conspicuously so, lobes equal, broadly to narrowly deltoid, apex acute to subulate, erect or connivent at first and often becoming spreading to reflexed in fruit; corolla strongly 2-lipped, 5-lobed (2/3), violet-blue, lilac or rarely cream, anterior lip with median lobe often much shorter than others, lateral lobes directed forward, tube cylindric, straight; stamens with-filaments hairy; style jointed, deciduous above, its persistent base fused to carpels along their inner face; disc well-developed, almost encircling ovary; nutlets cymbiform, dorsally smooth, convex, ventral surface fused to style base, on separation concave with involute, laciniate margin, dorsal surface weakly mucilaginous.  2n = 30.  Five to six species, savannas and coastal dunes, Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, with the weedy M. chamaedrys (Vahl) Kuntze from Mexico southwards and widespread in the neotropics.

Distribution

Native to:

Synonyms

Publication

Marsypianthes Mart. ex Benth., Labiatarum Genera et Species: 53, 64 (1833); Epling, Rep. Spec. Nov. Beih. 85: 184-186 (1936), rev.

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Image resource

© Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew