I.C. Hedge
Satureja sect. Calamintha (Moench) Briquet
Annual or perennial herbs or shrubs. Stems erect with short eglandular often retrorse hairs, leafy. Leaves not divided, petiolate, ovate-oblong, gland-dotted below, margins subentire or finely crenulate-serrulate. Inflorescence of very shortly pedunculate cymes, subverticillate, the lowermost in the upper. leaf axils, forming elongated spikes Bracts very small flowers white, pink or violet, clearly pedicellate. Calyx tubular parallel-sided, bilabiate or inconspicuously bilabiate (in ours), 13-veined; throat lightly bearded or villous within; teeth 5 slender, equal. Corolla bilabiate; upper lip short, straight, emarginate, glabrous or pilose; lower lip 3-lobed with a large median emarginate lobe; tube narrow, not annulate within. Stamens 4 included under corolla upper lip, didynamous; thecae bilocular, divergent or parallel, glabrous. Stylar branches unequal. Nutlets ovoid, scarcely trigonous, apically rounded.
About 20 species in Europe and Asia to Japan; also in E Africa. A genus of imprecise boundaries and questionable status, close to Clinopodium, Satureja and Micromeria q.v.
