OROBANCHACEAE  

Herbs, holoparasitic on roots, whole plant lacking chlorophyll, usually coloured; root system modified into a haustorium attached to host; stems usually subterranean, short, simple, erect or ascending, somewhat fleshy, sometimes almost woody. Leaves scale-like, imbricate, scattered or dense, adpressed to stem, suborbicular, ovate or elliptical, usually enlarging gradually up stem. Flowers many, rather large, showy, sessile or very shortly pedicellate, bracteate and bibracteolate, in +/- dense, terminal or subterminal spikes, these sometimes subcorymbose to subcapitate. Calyx tubular, 5-lobed, sometimes deeply so, or 5-cleft, rarely cleft nearly to base at back; lobes unequal or +/- equal, usually with 2 pairs joined high up and odd one free. Corolla tubular, +/- cylindrical to obovoid, irregular, bi- or unilabiate, usually 3-lobed or 3-dentate, exceeding calyx; tube +/- curved forwards or nearly straight; limb sometimes +/- arched, hooded or almost helmeted; lobes much shorter than tube, often obscure, sometimes with 2 forming a hood and 1 small lobe, together forming an oblique to vertical, slit-like or gaping mouth; posterior lobes probably interior in bud. Stamens 4, didynamous or nearly equal, arising about or below middle of corolla tube, sometimes at base, included or slightly exserted; filaments linear, glabrous, pilose or villous at base; anthers approximated in pairs, pendulous, blunt or scarcely mucronate at base, glabrous, unithecate. Ovary bilocular, oval, ovoid-conical or subglobose; ovules very many; placentas geminate or bifid, prominent; style linear, slightly exserted, bent downwards above, glabrous, exceeding stamens; stigma thickly clavate or subglobose, emarginate or somewhat 2-lobed. Fruit a subglobose, fleshy capsule, at length deliquescent. Seeds very many, minute, globose; testa loose, reticulate.