Neatostema

Annual herbs, mostly covered with coarse hairs. Rosette leaves densely clustered, sessile, entire; cauline leaves alternate, moderately spaced, sessile. Inflorescences terminal, of 1–few simple monochasial scorpioid cymes; bracts present. Flowers sessile, arranged in 2 rows; sepals 5, scarcely connate at base, elongating slightly with age; corolla regular, 5-lobed, cylindric, hairy outside and inside, particularly in the throat, with a ring of nectary scales just below anthers, throat open, lobes scarcely spreading; stamens inserted in lower third of corolla-tube, anthers ellipsoid, subsessile; ovary 4-lobed, 4-celled, style filiform, about as long as stamens, stigma 2-lobed. Fruit splitting into 4 mericarps leaving a flatish gynobase; mericarps ovoid, beaked, with bulging 'shoulders', outer surface smooth, inner surface tuberculate and ridged, attachment scar broad and thin, basal.