Description:

• Annual herbs, erect, prostrate, decumbent or ascending, or floating, mostly glabrous, sometimes pubescent or subglabrous, often glandular-punctate; stems simple or branching, often rooting at nodes
• Leaves opposite, petiolate to sessile, variously obovate to spathulate or linear to lanceolate or ovate, entire or variously dentate to crenate, or leaves capillary-divided in aquatic species; often glandular punctate
• Flowers axillary, usually solitary, sometimes several, pedicellate, usually bibracteolate just below calyx
• Calyx 5-partite; sepals imbricate in bud, unequal, posterior broadest, laterals usually very narrow
• Corolla bilabiate; tube cylindrical; upper lip emarginate or 2-lobed, exterior in bud; lower lip 3-lobed; lobes equal or subequal
• Stamens 4, didynamous, perfect, included, arising in corolla tube; anthers bithecate; thecae usually parallel, sometimes divaricate or finally confluent; staminodes 0
• Nectary 0 or 1
• Ovary bilocular; ovules many; style dilated at apex, entire, concave or 2-lobed
• Fruit an ovoid to globose or ellipsoid capsule, loculicidal or septicidal, bivalved; valves bifid or bipartite
• Seeds small, many, usually striate and transversely reticulate
• x = 8 (1 report, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Bacopa Aubl.
  • Aublet: 128, t. 49 (1775) name conserved
  • Hepper: 358 (1963)
  • Philcox: 48 (1990)
  • Greuter et al.: 298 (1994)
  • Mielcarek: 33 (1996)
• Moniera P.Browne
  • Browne: 269 (1756)
  • Hiern: 355 (1904)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 56, tropical and subtropical regions
• Southern Africa: Species 3, Botswana, Northern Province, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal; marsh plants, at times aquatic