Description:

• Perennial herbs, usually tomentose or lanate
• Leaves petiolate, rugose, toothed
• Inflorescences of spaced verticils; verticils dense, often glomerate, many-flowered; bracts leaf-like, becoming smaller towards apex; bracteoles usually present, linear-subulate; flowers sessile
• Calyx tubular, widening towards mouth, 5-10-nerved, densely hairy inside mouth; teeth 10, subequal, spine-tipped, recurved or hooked
• Corolla small, white to purplish; tube included in calyx, glabrous or with a ring of hairs within; upper lip erect, almost flat or concave, almost entire to deeply 2-fid; lower lip slightly longer than upper, spreading, 3-fid, middle lobe broader and emarginate
• Stamens 4, didynamous, included in corolla lobe, anterior pair the longer; anthers 2-thecous, thecae divaricate, confluent
• Style 2-lobed at apex, lobes obtuse
• Nutlets ovoid, smooth truncate at apex
• x = 17 (7, 9) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• *Marrubium L.
  • Linnaeus: 582 (1753)
  • Linnaeus: 254 (1754)
  • Bentham: 1206 (1876)
  • Briquet: 230 (1896)
  • Cullen: 137 (1972)
  • Codd: 25 (1985)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 30, natives of Europe, N Africa and Asia
• Southern Africa: Species 1: *Marrubium vulgare L. from Europe is now a widespread weed in E Free State, Lesotho and Eastern Cape