Description:

• Annual or perennial herbs, acaulescent or sometimes caulescent
• Leaves usually all in a basal rosette, sometimes (in perennials) cauline, alternate, amplexicaul, simple, usually entire, with parallel venation; stipules 0
• Flowers usually bisexual, regular, small, bracteate, arranged in dense terminal spikes on long, erect, leafless stalks
• Calyx 4-lobed; lobes imbricate, lanceolate, sometimes 2 obovate and 2-ribbed, the other 2 concave, keeled and ciliate on upper part of keel, usually with membranous margins
• Corolla 4-lobed, membranous; tube ampulliform or cylindric, short
• Stamens 4, arising in mouth of corolla tube, alternating with lobes, exserted; filaments filiform; anthers 2-thecous, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, versatile, minutely apiculate
• Ovary superior, 2-locular, globose, with 1-many ovules in each locule, on axile placentas; style usually far exserted and villous; stigma simple
• Fruit a membranous capsule, dehiscing circumscissily at the middle or near base
• Seeds mostly 2-4 per capsule (± 15-25 in P. major L.), usually ± boat-shaped, with broad groove on face, sometimes triangular, gelatinous when wetted
• x = 5, 6, 10, 12 (4, 7, 8, 9, 11) (B-chromosomes, aneuploids, polyploidy)

Classification Notes:

• See also notes under Scrophulariaceae

Nomenclature:

• Plantaginaceae
  • Cooke: 387 (1910) as Plantagineae
  • Pilger: 1 (1937)
  • Levyns: 729 (1950)
  • Verdcourt: 1 (1971)
  • Lehmann: 9 (1988)
  • Glen: 151 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 3, species 255, cosmopolitan, mainly in temperate regions
• Southern Africa: Genus 1, species ± 12

References:

• COOKE, T. 1910. Plantagineae. Flora capensis 5,1
• GLEN, H.F. 1998. FSA contributions 12: Plantaginaceae. Bothalia 28
• LEHMANN, G. 1988. Plantaginaceae. Flora zambesiaca 9,1
• LEVYNS, M.R. 1950. In R.S. Adamson & T.M. Salter, Flora of the Cape Peninsula. Juta, Cape Town
• PILGER, R. 1937. Plantaginaceae. Das Pflanzenreich, Heft 102
• VERDCOURT, B. 1971. Flora of tropical East Africa. Plantaginaceae

Resources:

• Plantaginaceae genus: Plantago