Description: Perennial or annual herbs, sometimes obscurely gland-dotted, rooting at nodes.
Leaves opposite, sometimes clustered by suppression of internodes, lamina broader or thicker than the petiole, margins entire.
Inflorescence of flowers solitary in the leaf axils; bracteoles absent. Calyx tubular, smooth; teeth 4 or 3, short, unequal. Corolla 2-lipped, usually 5-lobed; tube symmetrical at base, neither swollen nor spurred; upper lip usually 2-lobed, lower usually 3-lobed, without a palate. Stamens 4 and didynamous or 2, usually included in corolla tube; anthers of pair(s) joined, 1-locular; staminodes absent. Stigma with a small vestigial flap, and a broad irritable flap, covering the corolla mouth, receptive above, when triggered appressed to the upper corolla lip.
Capsule thin-walled, loculicidal from the apex into 2 valves; seeds many, not winged, reticulate.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 6 species, Australia, New Zealand, India & East Africa. Australia: 6 species (3 species endemic), all States.
The relative conspicuousness of the midvein on the petiole and blade has been determined from spirit-preserved material.
Text by W. R. Barker
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Calyx teeth 4; plants often hairy on leaves and calyx; stamens 4 | Glossostigma elatinoides |
| Calyx teeth 3; plants glabrous; anthers 2 | 2 |
| 2 | Pedicels 2–15 mm long, erect in fruit; corolla opening fully, exserted from the calyx | Glossostigma diandrum |
| Pedicels 0–0.5 mm long with the fruits down-turned into the soil; corolla rudimentary, hidden within the closed calyx
Back to 1 | Glossostigma cleistanthum |
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