Description:

• Annual or perennial herbs; stems decumbent or prostrate to ascending, branching mainly from base, usually at wide angle
• Leaves alternate (lowest sometimes opposite), homo- or heteromorphic, ± ovate to suborbicular (upper ones sometimes ovate-lanceolate), obtuse to emarginate or subacute, entire or ± dentate, base various, sometimes hastate or sagittate, palmately veined, subsessile to petiolate, petioles sometimes twining
• Flowers irregular, pedicellate, solitary in leaf axils or in leafy racemes; pedicels ± patent, not reflexed
• Calyx deeply 5-lobed; lobes entire, ± equal, imbricate, usually shorter than corolla tube
• Corolla tubular, irregular; tube ± cylindrical or campanulate, usually with anterior, conical or cylindrical spur at base; limb bilabiate, lips sub- or unequal; posterior lip 2-lobed, shorter than anterior, ± patent, exterior in bud; anterior lip 3-lobed, usually broad and spreading with low basal palate partially occluding tube mouth; lobes entire
• Stamens 4, didynamous, included; anthers marginally coherent forming a ring-like structure; staminode minute
• Ovary bilocular; locules usually equal, with many, rarely few, ovules, or sometimes unequal with few ovules in anterior locule; style simple, erect; stigma capitate, entire
• Fruit an ovoid to globose, leathery or papery capsule; septum erect, ± straight; locules dehiscent by a single pore with detachable lid, sometimes anterior one indehiscent
• Seeds various in shape, often oblong-ellipsoid, alveolate or tuberculate; hilum median or rarely ± basal
• x = 9 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• *Kickxia Dumort.
  • Dumortier: 35 (1827)
  • Fernandes: 238 (1972)
  • Wells et al.: 653 (1986)
  • Sutton: 169, microfiche 109 (1988)
• Linaria Mill. in part
  • Hiern: 209 (1904)
  • Wells et al.: 654 (1986)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 46, West African islands, North Africa, Europe, south-central and SW Asia; widely naturalised in temperate regions
• Southern Africa: Species 1 or 2: *Kickxia spuria (L.) Dumort. subsp. spuria, and possibly *K. commutata (Bernh. ex Rchb.) Fritsch, Western Cape, sporadic occurrence, usually near cultivated areas