Annual or perennial herbs or soft-wooded shrubs. Leaves opposite, sessile or shortly petiolatete. Inflorescence of several pseudowhorls toward the ends of branches, vegetative growth continuing beyond the inflorescence. Pseudowhorls generally dense, c. spherical, each subtended by a pair of leaf-like bracts and each flower with one or 2 slender bracteoles; calyx 8–10-toothed, teeth usually rigid to mucronate; corolla tubular, 2-lipped, covered with orange hairs (rarely white); tube with 1-3 transverse fringes of hairs inside; upper lip entire; lower lip 3-lobed; stamens 4. Fruit of 4 (or fewer by abortion) glabrous nutlets.
A genus of 9 species in Africa, one extending to America and Asia. Two species naturalised in Australia, one in Victoria.
