Description: Perennial shrubs; branches 4-angular, becoming terete and woody at base; hairs stellate.
Leaves decussate, simple, coarsely toothed; petiolate.
Inflorescence leafy, thyrse-like with sessile, usually many-flowered cymes forming dense clusters in each leaf axil; internodes distinct. Calyx 10-lobed; lobes equal, narrow-triangular. Corolla zygomorphic, 2-lipped, with lower lobe narrow-oblong, stiffly erect, deeply 2-lobed, lateral lobes narrower, and upper lobe broad-spathulate. Stamens 4, included in the corolla tube, all fertile; anthers with 2 loculi fertile; loculi divergent to about 90deg from the attachment of the filaments.
Mericarps 3-keeled.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 40 species, temperate Eurasia & Mediterranean region. Australia: 1 species (naturalized).
Text by B. J. Conn
Taxon concept:
| One species in NSW: Marrubium vulgare |
|
