Description:

• Annual, viscid-pubescent herbs, parasitic on grass roots; stems simple or slightly branched in inflorescence, erect, leafy
• Leaves opposite, sessile or lowest shortly petiolate, narrow-lanceolate, obtuse, coarsely toothed or shallowly pinnatifid, spreading
• Flowers sessile, in axils of leaves or bracts, in dense terminal spikes, usually unbranched, elongated in fruit
• Bracts almost as long as flowers
• Calyx ovoid, somewhat inflated, tetragonous, shortly 4-lobed, densely tomentose; tube campanulate; lobes deltoid, obtuse or rounded
• Corolla tubular, bilabiate, almost personate, 4-lobed; tube subcylindrical, ± as long as calyx tube, slightly curved; upper lip erect, narrow, hooded, concave, entire, rather shorter than lower one, inside in bud; lower lip dilated, spreading, 3-lobed, middle lobe the smallest; palate bigibbous, prominent
• Stamens 4, all fertile, didynamous, slightly exserted; upper pair arising at base of upper corolla lip, lower pair in lower part of corolla tube; all lying in hollow of upper lip; filaments filiform; anthers free, pendulous, bithecate; thecae oblong, shortly mucronulate at base, equal, parallel, ± bearded or at length glabrous
• Ovary bilocular, ovoid, hirsute; ovules many, on thick, bifid placentas; style linear, exceeding stamens, ± exserted, curved downwards near apex, hairy; stigma short, somewhat thickened, clavate, bifid
• Fruit a somewhat flattened, ovoid capsule, coriaceous, pubescent, turgid, loculicidal, bisulcate and enclosed in calyx
• Seeds many, small, convex on one side, flattish on other, longitudinally ribbed; testa membranous
• x = 6 (7) (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Bartsia L.
  • Linnaeus: 602 (1753) name conserved
  • Bentham: 977 (1876)
  • Hemsley & Skan: 458 (1906)
  • Visser: 82, 164, figs 210-214 (1981)
  • Greuter et al.: 230 (1994)
• Bellardia All.
  • Allioni: 61 (1785)
  • Hiern: 419 (1904)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 49, mostly South America (Andes), also S Europe, Orient, North America and Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 1: Bartsia trixago L., sporadic in Northern, Western and Eastern Cape; possibly introduced