Description :

• Perennial, erect or spreading herbs or subshrubs
• Leaves often blotched on upper surface or variegated (cultivars)
• Inflorescences terminal; flowers in pedunculate or sessile, often somewhat glomerate, dichasia; bracts differentiated from leaves, early deciduous
• Calyx bilabiate, 5-toothed; uppermost tooth the largest, forming an ovate erect lobe; 2 lowermost teeth fused, forming a strap-shaped emarginate lip; 2 lateral teeth short and truncate to rounded
• Corolla bilabiate; tube ± sigmoid, narrow and ascending at base then deflexed about middle and expanding to throat; upper lip obscurely 4-lobed; lower lip larger than upper, boat-shaped
• Stamens 4, declinate, arising at mouth of corolla tube and lying in lower lip; filaments usually shortly united at base, occasionally free
• Style lying with stamens in lower lip of corolla
• Nutlets ovoid-triquetrous, glabrous
• x = 7 (10, 11, 13) (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Solenostemon Thonn.
  • Thonning: 271 (1827)
  • Briquet: 359 (1897)
  • Morton: 251 (1962)
  • Codd: 437 (1975)
  • Codd: 179 (1985)
• Coleus sect. Solenostemon (Thonn.) Benth.
  • Bentham: 52 (1832)
  • Bentham: 72 (1848)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 60, in Africa, Asia and Malesia
• Southern Africa : Species 2: Solenostemon latifolius (Hochst. ex Benth.) J.K.Morton and S. rotundifolius (Poir.) J.K.Morton from Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape