NEW SOUTH WALES FLORA ONLINE

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Description: Perennial or annual herbs, subshrubs or lianes; indumentum of simple trichomes.

Leaves opposite or whorled, simple, pinnatifid or pinnate, petiolate or sessile; margins often toothed, sometimes joined at the base; stipules absent.

Inflorescences in paired cymes or thyrses, or sometimes reduced to a solitary flower. Flowers bisexual, 4-merous, strongly irregular. Calyx 4-partite, the sepals valvate. Petals fused, 2-lipped (or 3-lobed in Calceolaria triandra, not in Australia); upper lip arched or hooded (rarely saccate), entire or 2-parted (in C. triandra), the lower lip usually large and saccate and ± slipper-like or not saccate (in C. triandra and Jovellana, neither in Australia); inner side of lower lip usually with a dense patch of oil-secreting glandular trichomes, the neck often with red or brown spots. Stamens 2 or rarely 3 (in some Calceolaria); filaments free from each other but attached to petals; anthers basifixed, each anther often dehiscing by a single slit or dehiscing apically (in C. triandra); staminodes absent; nectary absent. Gynoecium of 2 connate carpels. Ovary superior to semi-inferior, placentation axile, locules 2; styles 1, apical, simple; stigma small or capitate or obscurely bilobed, sometimes proximally with stalked glands. Ovules numerous.

Fruit a capsule, septicidal and secondarily loculicidal, dehiscing into 4 valves. Seeds small, ellipsoid, with longitudinal and often transverse ridges with an overlying reticulate pattern, seldom colliculate.

Distribution and occurrence: Distribution and occurrence: World: 2 genera, 274 species, native to tropical and South America, Falkland Islands and New Zealand. Australia: 1 species (naturalised) W.A., Qld., N.S.W.; N.I. (doubtfully naturalised).

External links:
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (Family: Calceolariaceae, Order: Lamiales)
Wikipedia