Description:

• Perennial herbs or shrublets
• Leaves opposite or whorled, often very small, entire to toothed
• Inflorescences terminal, spike-like, on main and upper lateral branches; verticils spaced or crowded; bracts present as an apical coma in bud stage, early deciduous often leaving a conspicuous circular gland-like scar; verticils usually 6-flowered
• Calyx bilabiate; tube campanulate; upper lip broadly ovate, decurrent on tube; lateral pair of teeth obsolete but replaced by a wide shoulder-like sinus often with a fimbriate margin; lowest pair of teeth subulate or bristle-like
• Corolla bilabiate; tube exceeding calyx, expanding towards mouth; upper lip erect, 4-lobed; lower lip spreading, entire, concave
• Stamens 4, subequal, well exserted, declinate; filaments free, upper pair arising near base of corolla tube with a hairy knee-bend near base, lower pair arising near throat
• Disc cup-shaped
• Ovary glabrous; style well exserted, deeply 2-lobed
• Nutlets ellipsoid or oblong, somewhat compressed
• x = 12 (1 report) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Becium Lindl.
  • Lindley: 42 (1842)
  • Brown: 230 (1910)
  • Launert & Schreiber: 9 (1969)
  • Codd: 223 (1985)
  • Paton: 199 (1995)
• Ocimum in sense of Benth.
  • Bentham: 1 (1832) in part
• Ocimum sect. Hiantia Benth.
  • Bentham: 35 (1848)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 33, in tropical Africa, extending into the Arabian Peninsula and India
• Southern Africa: Species 4, N and NE Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape