Description :

• Annual or perennial herbs, acaulescent or sometimes caulescent
• Leaves usually all in a basal rosette, sometimes (in perennials) cauline, alternate, amplexicaul, simple, usually entire, with parallel venation; stipules 0
• Flowers usually bisexual, regular, small, bracteate, arranged in dense terminal spikes on long, erect, leafless stalks
• Calyx 4-lobed; lobes imbricate, lanceolate, sometimes 2 obovate and 2-ribbed, the other 2 concave, keeled and ciliate on upper part of keel, usually with membranous margins
• Corolla 4-lobed, membranous; tube ampulliform or cylindric, short
• Stamens 4, arising in mouth of corolla tube, alternating with lobes, exserted; filaments filiform; anthers 2-thecous, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, versatile, minutely apiculate
• Ovary superior, 2-locular, globose, with 1-many ovules in each locule, on axile placentas; style usually far exserted and villous; stigma simple
• Fruit a membranous capsule, dehiscing circumscissily at the middle or near base
• Seeds mostly 2-4 per capsule (± 15-25 in P. major L.), usually ± boat-shaped, with broad groove on face, sometimes triangular, gelatinous when wetted
• x = 5, 6, 10, 12 (4, 7, 8, 9, 11) (B-chromosomes, aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Plantago L.
  • Linnaeus: 112 (1753)
  • Cooke: 388 (1910)
  • Glen: 151 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 250, cosmopolitan
• Southern Africa : Species ± 12, at least 5 introduced, 5 restricted to region, 2 widely distributed weeds, doubtfully indigenous, often in damp situations