Description :

• Annual herbs, or rarely small, woody, perennial subshrubs ( S. dulcis ), erect, fairly robust, much-branched, glabrous or minutely pubescent, especially at nodes; stems slightly angular or ribbed because of decurrent leaf bases
• Leaves commonly ternate, whorled or opposite, narrowed to petiole-like base, narrowly oblanceolate to elliptic-lanceolate, entire or dentate in upper half, usually narrow, punctate, veins prominent below
• Flowers small, usually solitary or more rarely paired in axils of leaf-like bracts, sometimes forming branched, many-flowered, raceme-like inflorescences, pedicellate, ebracteolate
• Calyx deeply 4(5)-lobed; lobes equal or subequal, ovate or oblong, obtuse, imbricate, densely sessile-glandular
• Corolla regular, rotate, 4(5)-lobed, corolla tube very short, not exceeding calyx tube, throat bearded; lobes obtuse, subequal, bearded in lower part, upper lobes probably outside in bud
• Stamens 4, subequal, exserted; filaments filiform; anthers subsagittate with 2 divergent or parallel thecae
• Ovary bilocular, ovoid; ovules many; style subclavate at apex, persistent; stigma truncate or emarginate
• Fruit a globose or ovoid, septicidal capsule, when partly opened forming a ± round pore at apex; valves ± entire, membranous
• Seeds many, obovoid, angular, minutely pitted
• x = 10 (polyploidy)

Classification Notes:

• The arrangement of corolla lobes in bud of * Scoparia is uncertain
  • Wettstein (1891/1893) and Hemsley & Skan (1906) grouped it with Veronica in Digitaleae , which has upper lobes inside in bud
  • Dyer: 540 (1975) placed it in Selaginaceae
  • Mielcarek (1996) and Takhtajan: 457 (1997) put it in subfamily Scrophularioideae , Gratioleae , these taxa having upper lobes outside in bud
• The available material precluded checking of this feature

Nomenclature:

• *Scoparia L.
  • Linnaeus: 116 (1753)
  • Hemsley & Skan: 354 (1906)
  • Philcox: 77 (1990)
  • Mielcarek: 32 (1996)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 20; tropical America
• Southern Africa : Species 1: * Scoparia dulcis L., a pantropical weed of cultivation, grazed grasslands and wasteland; sometimes an escape in KwaZulu-Natal (Richards Bay, Inanda and Verulam Districts)