Ajuga.] 
XCVI. LABIATE. 
1209 
exserted from the upper lip and arched over the corolla; anthers reniform, 1- 
celled by the confluence of the cells. Style shortly bifid at the end. Nuts 
laterally attached to near or above the middle, reticulate-rugose. — Herbs, usually 
diffuse or ascending or with spreading radical leaves and shortly erect stems. 
Flowers in false-whorls in the axils of floral leaves gradually smaller than the 
stem-leaves, the upper ones sometimes forming terminal leafy spikes. Bracts 
linear, or very small or none. 
The genus is widely dispersed over the extratropical regions of the Old World, and chiefly 
in the mountain districts within the tropics, but wanting in America. 
1. A. australis (Australian), B. Br. Prod. 503 ; Benth. FI. Austr. v. 136. 
A perennial, more or less pubescent or villous, without stolones, with erect or 
ascending simple stems from 2 or 3in. to above 1ft. long, flowering nearly from 
the base. Leaves chiefly radical, obovate or oblong, coarsely toothed, contracted 
into a long petiole, often 3 to 4in. or sometimes still longer; lower floral leaves 
nearly similar or smaller and narrower, passing into sessile oblong or lanceolate 
entire lobes, all longer than the flowers or the upper ones very small. Flowers 
blue, nearly sessile, in false-whorls of from about 6 to above 20, exceedingly variable 
in size. Bracts linear, the outer ones sometimes as long as the calyx, the inner 
ones or nearly all very small or obsolete. Calyx villous or nearly glabrous, from 
about 2 lines to nearly 4 lines long, the teeth acute, shorter than the tube. 
Corolla-tube from the length of the calyx to twice as long, always with a trans- 
verse ring of hairs inside above the ovary, the upper lip truncate or emarginate, 
sometimes exceedingly short, in some of the larger flowers nearly one line long, 
but always twice as broad as long, and never longer than the space between the 
base of the lower lip and the lateral lobes ; the middle lobe of the lower lip 
usually longer than the tube. Nuts glabrous. — Bentb. in DC. Prod. xii. 597 ; 
Hook. f. FI. Tasm. i. 286 ; A. cliemenica, Benth. Lab. Gen. et. Sep. 695 and in 
DC. Prod. xii. 597 ; A. virgata and A. trindentata, Benth. Lab. Gen. et. Sep. 
700, 701 ; and in DC. Prod. xii. 601, 602. 
Hab.: Keppel Bay. R. Brown ; Percy Isles, A. Cunningham : Port Curtis, i! PGillivray: 
Rockingham Bay and Rockhampton, Dallachy and others; Moreton Bay, C. Stuart ; Mount 
Faraday, Mitchell. A most variable plant both in leaf and flower. 
Order XCYII. PLANTAGINEA3. 
Flowers regular. Sepals 4. Corolla small, scarious, with an ovate or 
cylindrical tube and 4 spreading lobes, imbricate in the bud. Stamens 4, or 
rarely fewer, inserted in the tube of the corolla and alternate with its lobes, 
usually long ; anthers 2-celled, the cells parallel, opening longitudinally. Ovary 
free, 1- 2- or 4-celled, with one or more ovules in each cell. Style simple, 
terminal, entire, with 2 opposite longitudinal stigmatic lines. Capsule opening 
traversely or indehiscent. Seed peltate, laterally attached, albuminous. Embryo 
straight or slightly curved, parallel to the hilum. — Herbs with radical tufted or 
spreading leaves, rarely branched and leafy. Flowers in heads or spikes or rarely 
solitary, on leafless axillary peduncles, each one sessile within a small bract. 
A small Order, widely spread over the globe, but chiefly in the temperate regions of the Old 
World. 
1. PLANTAGO, Linn. 
(Name used by Pliny.) 
Flowers hermaphrodite, in heads or spikes. Stamens 4. Capsule 2- or 4- 
celled ; the other characters those of the Order. 
The geographical range of the genus is (he same as that of the Order. The characters 
derived from the exserted or included styles or stamens have been shown by A. Gray to be 
dimorphic or subsexual and not specific, and there remains often little to be relied upon but the 
shape of the leaves, the density of inflorescence, the size of the flowers aud similar eminently 
variable differences. ---Benth. 
