Leonotis
Source:
SSA
Synonym(s):
Phlomis sect. Leonotis Pers.: 127 (1807). Hemisodon Raf.: 88 (1837).
Description:
Annual or perennial robust herbs, or shrubs, up to 5 m tall. Stem rounded at base, 4-angled and 4-grooved at apex, upper 10-25 nodes green, without lenticels, nodes thicker and more hairy than internodes, often with prominent leaf scars. Leaves crenate. Inflorescences composed of 3-11 verticils per shoot, dense, spherical, axillary, many-flowered; bracts leaf-like; bracteoles linear, spinescent. Calyx tubular, 10-nerved, 8-10-toothed; teeth usually rigid, spinescent or rarely almost obsolete; dorsal calyx tooth sometimes dominating, supported by 3 calyx veins. Corolla tubular, 2-lipped, white, covered by orange-coloured (rarely white) hairs; tube with 1-3 transverse fringes of hairs inside, 2-8 mm above abscission zone; upper corolla lip entire, almost as long as tube, a fringe of longer hairs covering anthers and stigma; lower corolla lip 3-lobed, soon withering and becoming patent or reflexed, lobes subequal or the middle one larger and faintly retuse. Stamens 4, arising at mouth of corolla, didynamous, lower pair longer; anthers 2-thecous, divaricate, subconfluent. Disc ventrally enlarged. Style not bifid, only ventral branch developed and dorsal stigma surface sessile. Nutlets glabrous, oblong, 3-angled in transverse section, distally truncate and glandular. x = 6, 7 (polyploidy).
Distribution:
Species 10-15, tropical Africa; 3 species are known from sthn Afr., widespread.