Description:

• Small annual herbs; roots whitish; stems erect or ascending, sparingly branched, ± glabrous, quadrangular, ribbed to almost 4-winged because of decurrent leaf bases
• Leaves opposite and decussate, mostly sessile, lowermost sometimes shortly petiolate, broad-based; lower ones ± equal, ovate to linear-lanceolate, entire to remotely serrulate, 1-3-veined with veins arising from base; upper pairs smaller, often very unequal
• Flowers 1 per node, shortly pedicellate, bracteate, lower ones axillary, upper ones in lax to spike-like, few-flowered, terminal racemes
• Bracts in unequal pairs, one ± leaf-like, other smaller, ± subulate
• Calyx 5-lobed and 5-ribbed or winged; tube cylindrical to bilabiate; lobes ± as long as tube or much shorter
• Corolla bilabiate; tube cylindrical; limb with upper lip shortly 2-lobed, somewhat hooded, exterior in bud; lower one larger, 3-lobed, with palate area at base bearing clavate hairs with multicellular bases
• Stamens 4; posterior pair arising at top of corolla tube, included, with filaments short, filiform; anterior pair arising in throat of tube, with filaments geniculate at base (sometimes obscurely so), with a small lateral appendage, then arched and connivent under upper lip; anthers usually cohering in pairs, bithecate; thecae divaricate; staminodes 0
• Nectary 0
• Ovary bilocular, elliptical; ovules many; style filiform; stigma bilamellate with papillate receptive area on inner sides
• Fruit an oblong capsule, ± acute, somewhat shorter than calyx, septicidal, glabrous
• Seeds small, many; testa reticulate, epidermal cells thin-walled; endosperm alveolate and longitudinally furrowed

Nomenclature:

• Crepidorhopalon Eb.Fisch.
  • Fischer: 439 (1989)
  • Fischer: 126 (1992)
  • Seine et al.: 7 (1995)
  • Mabberley: 191 (1997)
• Torenia L. in part
  • Hiern: 362 (1904)
  • Merxmüller & Roessler: 56 (1967)
  • Philcox: 59 (1990)
  • Brummitt: 117 (1992)
• Lindernia All. in part
  • Young: 9 (1952)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 24, tropical and southern Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 2: Crepidorhopalon debilis (Skan) Eb.Fisch. and C. spicatus (Engl.) Eb.Fisch., NE Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province and Gauteng; usually in ephemeral flush communities