Ibicella

Robust, +/- prostrate, much-branched annual herbs, with dense glandular pubescence on most parts; stems terete, striate. Leaves large, +/- opposite, long-petiolate, broadly ovate to +/- orbicular, strongly cordate at base, sometimes the 2 sides overlapping, obscurely lobed, margins remotely dentate, both surfaces glandular-pubescent; veins usually 5, digitate at base, otherwise pinnate. Flowers pendent in dense terminal racemes on peduncles, elongating in fruit; yellow, sometimes with red, dotted honey guides on lower corolla lobes; extrafloral nectaries 0; bracts elliptic, with fringe of glandular hairs, fewer elsewhere. Calyx shorter than corolla, oblique, of 5 free lobes, varying linear-lanceolate to obovate, lowermost 2 broadest, apices obtuse to acute or acuminate, fringed like bracts. Corolla obliquely campanulate; tube narrowing just above base but widening rapidly above, sometimes somewhat curved; limb sub-bilabiate, flaring; lobes broadly obovate, unequal, lowermost broadest. Stamens didynamous, included; anthers with thecae spreading; staminode 1. Nectary regular. Ovary ovate, tapering into long, terete, persistent style, 2-carpellate but 1-locular with (in cross section) short-stemmed, T-shaped intrusions of 2 parietal placentas dividing area into 5 chambers, 4 peripheral and 1 central; ovules many, borne on peripheral edges of septa, descending; stigma broader than style, 2-lobed. Fruit a large, woody, cylindrical-ovoid capsule, tapering into a slender, curved beak longer than capsule; surface covered with rough protuberances or with ascending, conical spines from woody endocarp and piercing outer, somewhat fleshy pericarp; splitting longitudinally into 2 valves down centre of beak and parallel to septa. Seeds obovate, tuberculate; testa finely transversely ridged. x = 8 (1 report, polyploidy).