Ballota

Perennial herbs or subshrubs; branches 4-angled, with simple hairs. Inflorescence of crowded cymes in distal leaf-axils. Calyx 10-veined, distally expanded, undulate, or with 5–16 crenations or teeth, lobes c. mucronate or gradually tapered into an awn, rarely entire; corolla 2-lipped, tube shorter than or equal to calyx, abaxial lip with median lobe emarginate, longer and broader than lateral pair, adaxial lip c. hooded, narrow, entire to shallowly bilobed; stamens 4, fertile, parallel, adaxial pair longer, anther locules divergent, both fertile; ovary deeply 4-lobed, style gynobasic, stigma subequally 2-fid. Mericarps c. obloid, rounded at apex.