Sesamum

Annual or perennial, erect herbs, rarely dwarf shrubs or shrubs, usually sparsely branched. Leaves sessile or petiolate; lamina entire, lobed or digitate, often polymorphic. Flowers solitary, axillary, shortly pedicellate with extrafloral nectaries (reduced flowers) at base; usually pink. Calyx much shorter than corolla tube, usually suboblique, persistent or deciduous; segments linear or lanceolate-linear, usually acuminate. Corolla: tube shortly cylindrical at base, obliquely campanulate above; limb sub-bilabiate, +/- oblique; lobes obovate with lowest lobe longest. Stamens subdidynamous, included; filaments terete, usually glandular-pilose at base; anthers oblong, dorsifixed; thecae parallel, connective gland-tipped; staminodes 0. Nectary annular, sometimes rudimentary. Ovary subcylindrical, equally 2-locular, falsely 4-locular with a false, parietal septum almost to apex; ovules many per compartment, in 1 row; placentation axile; style terete, included; stigma of 2 obovate or lanceolate-ovate, membranous lobes. Fruit a +/- erect capsule, cultrate to narrowly oblong or obconical in lateral view, shortly beaked, slightly compressed at right angles to septum, 4-sulcate, loculicidal towards base. Seeds obovate, sometimes 4-angled, compressed, with acute margins or winged at one or both ends, or with a double, rarely single, membranous fringe; testa subcoriaceous, smooth or rugose and muriculate-foveolate; sometimes oily. x = 13 (8, 9) (high polyploidy).