Family Phrymaceae
Description: Annual or perennial herbs.
Leaves opposite with margins entire or toothed, gland-dotted (punctate) or not.
Flowers in racemes, rarely solitary or in axillary clusters. Calyx tubular, toothed, the tube ribbed or winged below teeth. Corolla zygomorphic; stamens 4 with filaments arising from corolla tube; carpels 2, many ovulate.
Fruit a loculicidal capsule, dehiscent, borne in a persistent calyx. Seeds small, many, surface reticulate and sometimes ribbed or winged, smooth, or tessellate.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 13 genera, 188 species. Native to Australasia. the Americas, Asia, Africa. Australia 6 genera; c. 17 species.
External links:
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (Family: Phrymaceae, Order: Lamiales)
Wikipedia
Text by Louisa Murray Feb 2017
Taxon concept: Barker, W.R., G.L. Nesom, P.M. Beardsley, and N.S. Fraga. 2012. A taxonomic conspectus of Phrymaceae: A narrowed circumscriptions for Mimulus, new and resurrected genera, and new names and combinations. Phytoneuron 2012-39: 1–60.
| | Key to the genera | |
| 1 | Leaves opposite joined by a ridge at the nodes; calyx prominently 5-angled | 2 |
| Leaves opposite with no join at the nodes; calyx tubular, mainly smooth or very slightly angled | 3 |
| 2 | Pedicles shorter than calyx | Peplidium |
| Pedicels longer than calyx
Back to 1 | Elacholoma |
| 3 | Calyx with noticeably unequal teeth | 4 |
| Calyx with equal or almost equal teeth
Back to 1 | 5 |
| 4 | Leaves opposite, sometimes clustered by suppression of the internodes, entire | Glossostigma |
| Leaves opposite, not clustered, toothed
Back to 3 | Erythranthe |
| 5 | Leaves lanceolate to linear oblong, entire or sparsely toothed, sessile | Mimulus |
| Leaves ovate, entire, shortly petiolate
Back to 3 | Thyridia |
|
