Hemimeris

Annual, slender herbs; stems simple or +/- freely branched, quadrangular, often channelled or ridged, branches opposite. Leaves opposite, uppermost sometimes alternate, sometimes with smaller leaves fascicled in axils, usually petiolate, rarely sessile, variously ovate to +/- linear or obovate to oblong, toothed, lobed or pinnatifid, rarely subentire. Flowers axillary or terminal, usually in condensed apical racemes, often with very short internodes and appearing umbellate, or solitary; pedicels longer than flowers, often reflexed in fruit; pollinated by oil-collecting bees. Calyx campanulate, 5-lobed; lobes free nearly to base, usually lanceolate, somewhat unequal, scarcely imbricate in bud. Corolla sub-bilabiate, 4-lobed, yellow, generally villous outside; tube very short, concave or obsolete; throat short; upper lip smaller than lower one, exterior in bud, very shortly emarginate, usually with reflexed margin and +/- well-developed pouch near centre; lower lip 3-lobed, lateral lobes short, broad, usually with subsessile glands towards base and 2 spurs or small pouches at base of lip, sometimes with 2 tooth-like appendages clasping stamen filaments at side of corolla throat; lowermost lobe larger, concave, usually emarginate. Stamens 2; filaments arising in throat, short, linear, kneed at base, often narrowly winged; anthers unithecate through confluence, usually connivent when mature. Ovary bilocular, usually ovoid, merging into style; ovules many; style persistent, usually declined, often winged; stigma often capitate, thinly stigmatose. Fruit a subglobose or ovate capsule, mostly loculicidal, partly septicidal. Seeds many, brown or black, angular-ovoid or subglobose, reticulate or papillate, sometimes with very narrow, membranous wing.