Description: Perennial herbs; branches 4-angular and grooved, developed from an underground rhizome; hairs simple.
Leaves decussate, simple, margins coarsely toothed; ± sessile.
Inflorescence leafy, thyrse-like with sessile few–many-flowered cymes forming dense clusters in each leaf axis. Calyx 5-lobed; lobes equal, acute. Corolla slightly zygomorphic, not 2-lipped, with lower lobe broad and entire, lateral lobes narrower, and upper lobe broad and slightly 2-lobed. Stamens with lower pair fertile; anthers with 2 loculi fertile; loculi slightly divergent.
Mericarps 3-angled to 3-keeled.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 14 species, chiefly northern temperate regions. Australia: 1 species (endemic).
Text by B. J. Conn
Taxon concept:
| One species in NSW: Lycopus australis |
|
