Plants annual or perennial, hispid or strigose. Leaves alternate. Cymes elongated after anthesis, becoming racemose; bracts leaflike. Flowers crowded at anthesis. Calyx tubular-campanulate, 5-lobed from upper 1/3 to middle, turgid saccate; lobes long triangular. Corolla blue-purple or yellow; tube straight; appendages scaly, below throat in upper part of tube; lobes spreading, overlapping, apex obtuse. Stamens included or slightly exserted; anthers oblong, obtuse, or mucronate. Ovary 4-divided. Style not exserted from corolla; stigma globose, or style 2-cleft at apex. Gynobase flat. Nutlets slightly curved, reniform to subglobose, reticulate-wrinkled, glabrous or sparsely pubescent; attachment scar on lower part adaxially, concave, with ringlike margin and umbilical emergence.

About 35 species: Africa, W Asia, Europe; one species in China.