Description: Perennial herbs; stem trailing or ascending, often rooting at nodes.
Leaves simple, usually toothed, often fleshy.
Inflorescences axillary, spicate, usually at first capitate then later cylindrical, many-flowered, pedunculate; bracts present. Flowers zygomorphic. Calyx membranous, campanulate. Corolla cylindrical; limbs 2-lipped and 4-parted; lobes flat and spreading. Stamens 4, didynamous, included in or scarcely exserted from corolla tube. Ovary 2-locular, 1 ovule per loculus; style short; stigma thick.
Fruit small, dry, enclosed by the calyx, ellipsoid, compressed, breaking into 2 mericarps.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 10 species, tropical & subtropical regions, especially America. Australia: 2 species (naturalized).
Text by B. J. Conn (2007)
Taxon concept: A.A. Munir (1993)
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Leaves greyish, margin with blunt short teeth or almost entire; flowers arranged in ovoid to globose spikes (spikes (3-)5–8(-10) mm long), with bracts elliptic-ovate; calyx lobes shorter than calyx tube | Phyla canescens |
| Leaves green, margin with sharp forward-directed teeth; flowers arranged in obloid spikes (spikes (5-)10–25(-30) mm long), with bracts subrhomboid to somewhat rotund; calyx lobes longer than calyx tube | Phyla nodiflora |
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