Common Name: Toadflaxes
Description: Annual or perennial herbs.
Leaves alternate, the lower sometimes opposite, broad, pinnately veined; petiolate.
Flowers solitary in leaf axils. Sepals ± equal. Corolla 2-lipped, produced at the base into a spur, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed with a basal prominent palate closing the mouth. Stamens 4, didynamous, included in corolla. Stigma entire.
Capsule with the 2 equal loculi dehiscing by a single large pore with a detachable lid; seeds variable.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 25–30 species, Mediterranean region to western India, Cape Verde, Canary Is. Australia: 3 species (naturalized), all States except N.T.
Text by W. R. Barker
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Leaves rounded or cordate at base, without basal lobes; sepals enlarging and united in fruit; capsules depressed-globose; seeds pitted | Kickxia spuria |
| At leaves some leaves hastate or sagittate; sepals not enlarging, free in fruit; capsules more or less globose; seeds tuberculate or pitted | 2 |
| 2 | Capsules 2–2.5 mm diam., thick-walled; seeds tuberculate; pedicels 1.5–10 times as long as the subtending leaves | Kickxia commutata |
| Capsules 3–4 mm diam., thin-walled, fragile; seeds pitted; pedicels 0.8–3 times as long as the subtending leaves
Back to 1 | Kickxia elatine |
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