I.C. Hedge

Annual glabrous herbs. Leaves simple, ovate-orbicular, crenate to lobed, long petiolate. Flowers borne in axils of upper leaves. Bracts subulate, spinose, spreading or deflexed. Calyx infundibuliform, in fruit much enlarged with membranous-reticulate broad spreading lobes. Corolla bilabiate; upper lip emarginate or entire, straight; lower lip 3-lobed, median lobe clearly larger; tube with an internal oblique annulus. Stamens 4, anterior pair longer; thecae bilocular, divergent. Nutlets clearly triquetrous, apically truncate.

Two species in the Mediterranean area and SW Asia. Sometimes cultivated as an ornamental in other parts of the world, such as Pakistan.

Lower Taxon

• Moluccella laevis L.