Cymbalaria

Herbs, usually short-lived perennials but sometimes annuals, glabrous to villous; stems procumbent to decumbent. Leaves simple, opposite or alternate, reniform to orbicular, lobed or rarely entire, palmately veined, long-petiolate. Flowers irregular, pedicellate, solitary in leaf axils. Calyx deeply 5-lobed; lobes entire, valvate, thickened, unequal, with posterior lobe exceeding others, shorter than corolla tube. Corolla tubular, bilabiate; tube cylindrical with spur on anterior side of base; lips +/- equal, posterior lip patent, exterior in bud, anterior lip spreading with prominent basal palate occluding mouth of tube; lobes entire. Stamens 4, didynamous, included, adjacent pairs of anthers marginally coherent; staminode minute. Ovary equally bilocular, septum erect, straight; style undivided, erect; stigma scarcely clavate, entire. Fruit a +/- globose capsule, walls papery, usually many-seeded, dehiscing by several irregular, meridional fissures, from apex +/- to base. Seeds broadly ellipsoid to globose, cristate or with some tubercles, ridges usually prominent; hilum subbasal. x = 7 (6) (aneuploids, high polyploidy).