Scutellaria
Perennial herbs, with creeping rootstock; branches quadrangular, ascending, hairy. Leaves petiolate, opposite; margin crenate-serrate. Flowers solitary in axils of distal leaves; flowering internodes apparent. Calyx 2-lipped, with a c. circular fold protruding from the adaxial lip, lips unequal, entire; corolla 2-lipped, adaxial lip broadly spathulate and indistinctly 3-lobed, abaxial lip with central lobe longer than lateral pair; stamens 4, fertile, 1 pair longer than others, and nearly or shortly exserted, anthers 2-locular, but those of the longer stamens often with only 1 locule fertile; ovary deeply 4-lobed, style gynobasic, stigma often unequally 2-fid. Fruit usually with 4 mericarps.
About 300 species, almost cosmopolitan; 2 species native and 1 naturalised in Australia.
Conn, B.J. (1999). Lamiaceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 4, Cornaceae to Asteraceae, pp. 418–459. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
Spinning
