Aquatic or marsh herbs, annual or perennial; aerial stems simple to much branched, glabrous or sometimes hirsute, often with pellucid dots and aromatic; submerged stems much branched, glabrous
Leaves: aerial ones opposite or verticillate, sessile, entire to serrate, laciniate or pinnately divided, punctate; submerged leaves laciniate, pinnatifid to capillary-multifid, glabrous
Flowers solitary and axillary, or in a dense, terminal raceme, sessile or pedicellate, bracteate; bracteoles 0 or 2
Calyx tubular, 5-lobed mostly to ± halfway, rarely shorter; lobes broadly ovate to lanceolate, sometimes acuminate, imbricate, subequal or posterior lobes larger
Corolla tubular, bilabiate, 5-lobed; tube cylindrical or funnel-shaped, glabrous or sparsely hirsute outside, sometimes villous or papillate inside; posterior lip entire or 2-lobed, outside in bud; anterior lip 3-lobed; lobes elliptical or ovate, slightly or much shorter than tube, erect or spreading
Stamens 4 (sometimes 2 in cleistogamous flowers), didynamous, included, posterior pair shorter; filaments linear, arising in corolla tube; anthers bithecate, free, sometimes contiguous at anthesis; thecae separate, usually shortly stalked; staminodes 0
Ovary bilocular, ovoid, glabrous; ovules many; style filiform, bent at right angles at apex; stigma bilamellate
Fruit an ovoid or ellipsoid, septicidal and loculicidal capsule, with 2, often bifid valves
Global: Species 37, Old World tropics and subtropics, Africa, Asia, and Australia
Southern Africa: Species 2, Namibia, Botswana and Mpumalanga (Kruger National Park); usually aquatic or amphibious, in shallow water or mud of bogs, swamps or riversides
References:
BROWN, R. 1810. Limnophila. Prodromus florae Novae Hollandiae. J. Johnson & Co., London
GREUTER, W., BARRIE, F.R., BURDET, H.M., CHALONER, W.G., DEMOULIN, V., HAWKSWORTH, D.L., JØRGENSEN, P.M., NICOLSON, D.H., SILVA, P.C., TREHANE, P, & MCNEILL, J. 1994. Appendix IIIA, Nomina generica conservanda et rejicienda. International code of botanical nomenclature. Koeltz Scientific Books, Königstein
MERXMÜLLER, H. & ROESSLER, H. 1967. Scrophulariaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 126
MIELCAREK, R. 1996. Les Scrophulariaceae dans la flore d'Afrique centrale (excl. Linderneae). Fragmenta floristica et geobotanica 41
PHILCOX, D. 1970. A taxonomic revision of the genus Limnophila R.Br. (Scrophulariaceae). Kew Bulletin 24
PHILCOX, D. 1990. Scrophulariaceae. Flora zambesiaca 8,2
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
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