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Description: Annual or perennial herbs, or rarely subshrubs (not in Australia), often with square stems; hairs present, eglandular or glandular, unicellular (branched or simple) or multicellular.

Leaves opposite, petiolate to sessile (sometimes with winged petioles), usually simple, rarely pinnately compound (not in Australia) or rarely 2-lobed (not in Australia), entire or serrate, free or sometimes basally fused; bracteoles usually absent; stipules absent.

Inflorescence a terminal or axillary raceme, or rarely solitary and axillary. Flowers zygomorphic, usually upright (resupinate in Lindernia hypandra), bisexual, chasmogamous and or cleistogamous; bracts absent. Calyx of (4 or) 5 sepals; sepals usually fused at least at base, rarely free, sometimes unequal but not bilabiate. Corolla of (2–) 4–5 fused petals, bilabiate (rarely upper lip absent, not in Australia), usually funnel-shaped, glabrous or hairy; lower lip of corolla sometimes with yellow club-shaped hairs on a multicellular base (not in Australia); nectary present at base of ovary. Stamens (2–) 4 (­–5), alternating with perianth, filaments free from each other and fused to the corolla tube, the lower stamens usually different to the upper, either zig-zag, curved, or longer, with spur-like or club-like appendages, or reduced to 2 staminodes; anthers dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, free from each other or connivent. Gynoecium of 2 connate carpels. Ovary superior, 2-locular, sometimes with apical and internal hairs; style 1, simple, apical; stigma bilobed, sensitive. Ovules 10–50 per locule; placentation basal or axile.

Fruit a capsule, septicidal or dehiscing along the septum with the valves falling off and a central axis remaining (septifragal, c.f. septicidal where the valves are persistent), or sometimes poricidal (Torenia s. str.) Seeds many, small, often with rounded pits or longitudinal furrows; endosperm usually pitted like honeycomb.

Distribution and occurrence: World: 20 genera, c. 319 species, pantropical to warm temperate. Australia: 5 genera, c. 52 species (c. 2 naturalised), WA (native and naturalised), ChI, NT, Qld, NSW (native and naturalised).

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

The genera Buchnera, Castilleja and Centranthera are eroneously placed in Linderniaceae in the Australian Plant Census [accessed 17 Apr. 2023]. These genera belong in Orobanchaceae (Tank et al. 2006 Aus. Syst Bot.19: 289–307).