Family Lamiaceae
Synonyms: Chloanthaceae APNI*
Description: Trees, shrubs or usually perennial or annual herbs, usually aromatic, mostly with 4-angled branches.
Leaves opposite, mostly decussate or sometimes whorled, usually simple; stipules absent.
Inflorescence cymose, with flowers often axillary or in the axils of leaf-like bracts, often in whorl-like clusters or reduced to single flowers. Flowers with at least the corolla zygomorphic and usually 2-lipped, bisexual, 5-merous. Sepals 5, more or less fused, persistent in fruit. Petals 5, more or less fused into a tube, 2-lipped or 5-lobed. Stamens 4, fused to corolla tube, often with only 2 fertile; anthers 2- or rarely 1-locular, dehiscence introrse by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior of 2 fused carpels, 4-locular, usually 4-lobed; style gynobasic or appearing so because base of style surrounded by enlarged lobes of the ovary.
Fruit a schizocarp with four 1-seeded mericarp or drupaceous, often with pyrenes.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 236 genera, c. 7173 species, almost cosmopolitan, but absent from the coldest regions of high latitude and altitude. Australia: 44 genera, c. 750 species, all States.
External links:
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (Family: Lamiaceae, Order: Lamiales)
Wikipedia The Australian representatives of this family are currently under revision. This family includes many culinary herbs which have been introduced to Australia, such as Melissa (lemon balm), Mentha (mint), Lavandula (lavender), Origanum (marjoram), Rosmarinus (rosemary) and Thymus (thyme). These genera are also cultivated as ornamental plants, together with species from the following introduced genera: Leonotis, Monarda, Nepeta (cat mint), Phlomis, Plectranthus (including Coleus) and Stachys. Of the Australian endemic genera, Prostanthera and Westringia, and to a lesser extent Hemiandra, Hemigenia and Microcorys, are frequently grown as ornamentals. In Australia, the following genera were previously classified in the Verbenaceae: Callicarpa, Clerodendrum, Oncinocalyx, Phyla, Premna, and Vitex. They are now included in the Lamiaceae.
Text by B. J. Conn (2007)
Taxon concept: B.J. Conn (1992)
Taxa not yet included in identification key
Chloanthes,
Dicrastylis,
Glechoma,
Physostegia,
Sideritis
| | Key to the genera | |
| 1 | Fruit dry | 2 |
| Fruit more or less fleshy | 26 |
| 2 | Calyx 2-lipped; lips sometimes toothed | 3 |
| Calyx 5–10-toothed, not divided into two lips
Back to 1 | 10 |
| 3 | Calyx with upper lip emarginate to undivided | 4 |
| Calyx with upper lip deeply 3-lobed or truncate with 3 sharp, almost obsolete teeth-like lobes
Back to 2 | 7 |
| 4 | Calyx with lower lip emarginate or undivided | 5 |
| Calyx with lower lip deeply 4-toothed
Back to 3 | 6 |
| 5 | Perennial herb; upper calyx lip with a hollow prominent swelling | Scutellaria |
| Woody subshrub to tree; upper calyx lip without a prominent swelling
Back to 4 | Prostanthera |
| 6 | Stamens free, distinctly exceeding the corolla; stigma capitate-clavate; corolla tube always straight and narrow | Orthosiphon |
| Stamens joined basally, included within lower corolla lip; stigma shortly 2-fid; corolla tube usually more or less bent and often swollen basally
Back to 4 | Plectranthus |
| 7 | Fertile stamens 2; anthers with loculi separated by an elongated connective, 1 loculus more or less sterile | Salvia |
| Fertile stamens 4; anthers 2- or 1-locular; connective not elongated
Back to 3 | 8 |
| 8 | Flowers sessile, in short dense terminal spike-like inflorescences | Prunella |
| Flowers distinctly pedicellate, in open terminal or axillary racemose inflorescences
Back to 7 | 9 |
| 9 | Flowers subtended by spinose leaf-like bracts | Dracocephalum |
| Flowers subtended by entire leaf-like bracts, not spine-tipped
Back to 8 | Melissa |
| 10 | Corolla more or less equally 4-lobed to indistinctly 2-lipped | 11 |
| Corolla distinctly 1- or 2-lipped
Back to 2 | 13 |
| 11 | Flowers in compact, thyrse-like inflorescences, with overlapping mauve bracts more or less covering the sessile 3-flowered cymes; strongly aromatic | Lavandula |
| Flowers in axillary cymose whorls, in the axils of leaf-like bracts or solitary in leaf axils; bracts not overlapping
Back to 10 | 12 |
| 12 | Stamens 4; leaves mostly soft, with margins entire or variously toothed, but never sharply toothed | Mentha |
| Stamens 2; staminodes 2; leaves stiff, with margins sharply toothed
Back to 11 | Lycopus |
| 13 | Corolla 1-lipped | 14 |
| Corolla 2-lipped
Back to 10 | 16 |
| 14 | Calyx lobes thread-like (subulate) and apex hooked | Oncinocalyx |
| Calyx lobes broad, not thread-like and apex more or straight, not hooked
Back to 13 | 15 |
| 15 | Corolla white; upper lip slit so that the lower lip appears 5-lobed; leaves cauline | Teucrium |
| Corolla blue to purple, rarely pinkish to white; upper lip inconspicuous; lower lip 3-lobed; leaves mainly in a basal rosette
Back to 14 | Ajuga |
| 16 | Leaves in whorls of 3–5 | 17 |
| Leaves opposite
Back to 13 | 18 |
| 17 | Upper stamens with connective elongated, terminated by dilated and bearded end | Hemigenia |
| Upper stamens with connective not or only very shortly elongated, not dilated or bearded
Back to 16 | Westringia |
| 18 | Calyx 8–10-toothed | 19 |
| Calyx 5-toothed, sometimes only minutely toothed
Back to 16 | 20 |
| 19 | Leaves narrow-elliptic, green, sparsely hairy; corolla orange, 30–55 mm long; shrub to 3 m high | Leonotis |
| Leaves rhombic, ovate to circular, white-tomentose; corolla white, 6–12 mm long; herb to 1 m high, sometimes woody at base
Back to 18 | Marrubium |
| 20 | Calyx expanded and bonnet-like, much longer than corolla; teeth minute | Moluccella |
| Calyx not expanded, shorter or as long as corolla; teeth well-developed
Back to 18 | 21 |
| 21 | Corolla with upper lip broad-oblong, flat, erect, 2-lobed, not hooded | 22 |
| Corolla with upper lip hooded
Back to 20 | 23 |
| 22 | Leaves with margins entire or often shallowly toothed; petiole to 0.6 cm long; flowers in spreading head-like clusters | Origanum |
| Leaves with margins crenate to lobed; petiole 0.5–2.5 cm long; flowers in obloid raceme-like clusters
Back to 21 | Nepeta |
| 23 | Leaves deeply lobed (more or less palmatifid to palmatisect or dissected with linear incised segments) | Leonurus |
| Leaves entire or finely to coarsely crenate and/or lobed
Back to 21 | 24 |
| 24 | Upper leaves sessile, stem-clasping, subtending and embracing the flowers, more or less equal to lower petiolate leaves | Lamium |
| Upper leaves subtending flowers petiolate, not embracing the flowers, noticeably reduced in size
Back to 23 | 25 |
| 25 | Annual herb to 0.4 m high; inflorescence mostly 3-flowered per bract or leaf axil; calyx 5–7 mm long | Stachys |
| Perennial herb to 2 m high; inflorescence usually more than 12-flowered per leaf axil; calyx 7–13 mm long
Back to 24 | Ballota |
| 26 | Corolla actinomorphic, not 2-lipped, 2–3 mm long; stamens 4, equal; fruit less than 4 mm diam., usually bright purple when ripe | Callicarpa |
| Corolla zygomorphic, more or less 2-lipped or one lobe much larger than other lobes, more than 4 mm long; stamens 4, more or less didynamous; fruit more than 4 mm diam., often black, bluish or red, sometimes purplish but then dull
Back to 1 | 27 |
| 27 | Fruit black and usually surrounded by the conspicuously enlarged reddish calyx | 28 |
| Fruit blue to purple, pink to reddish or if black then leaves usually 3- or 5-foliolate; fruiting calyx unchanged, not reddish
Back to 26 | 29 |
| 28 | Corolla blue, with lower lobe much longer than other 4 lobes | Rotheca |
| Corolla white, lobe more or less equal
Back to 27 | Clerodendrum |
| 29 | Fruit more than 15 mm diam., bluish purple; leaves with lamina more than 10 cm long and more than 5 cm wide; corolla more than 20 mm long; widespread rainforest tree | Gmelina |
| Fruit less than 15 mm diam., blue to black or reddish purple; leaves or leaflets with lamina less than 10 cm long and less than 5 cm wide; corolla less than 15 mm long; in rainforest and coastal communities north from the Richmond River
Back to 27 | 30 |
| 30 | Corolla usually 4-lobed, mostly straight; calyx truncate, without lobes or with small teeth; leaves simple | Premna |
| Corolla usually 5-lobed, often markedly curved; calyx 5-toothed or 5-cleft, rarely 3-cleft; leaves mostly palmately compound with 3 or 5 leaflets
Back to 29 | Vitex |
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