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LXXV. LABIATiE 
LXXV. LABIATE 
Herbs or shrubs ; stems and branches usually 4-sided. Leaves 
simple, lobed only in Leonurus, opposite, rarely whorled, often 
more or less covered with aromatic glands ; stipules none. 
Flowers irregular, regular or nearly so, usually 2-sexual, in 
opposite, axillary cymes composed of many or few, rarely only one 
or two flowers ; each pair of cymes constituting a whorl. Whorls 
sometimes placed one above the other at the extremity of the 
branches forming simple or paniculate racemes or spikes. Sepals 
5, free from the ovary, more or less united in a 5- or 4- rarely 
10 -toothed, tubular or sometimes 2 -lipped calyx. Corolla hypo- 
gynous ; tube distinct ; limb 4- or 5-toothed or lobed, regular or 
nearly so, or distinctly 2 -lipped, the upper lip usually erect and 
2-lobed or notched, the lower spreading and 3-lobed, rarely entire. 
Stamens usually 4, in unequal pairs, rarely all equal, sometimes 
only 2, attached to the corolla-tube and alternate with the lobes ; 
filaments free from one another, very rarely united near the base. 
Anthers 2- or 1 -celled, cells widely separated in Salvia. Disk 
hypogynous, usually thick and fleshy, often lobed. Ovary free, 
4-lobed to the base, lobes 1-celled ; style simple, slender, inserted 
in the centre of the ovary between the lobes, tip 2-lobed, stigmas 
minute ; ovules solitary in each cell. Fruit included within the 
persistent calyx, 4-lobed or by abortion 3- to 1 -lobed, the lobes 
ultimately separating into as many indehiscent, 1 -seeded, usually 
smooth nutlets. — A very large Order spread over nearly the whole 
globe, rare in arctic regions. — Name from the Latin labium , a 
lip, referring to the shape of the flowers. 
The leaves at the base of a whorl are termed floral leaves, and often have 
the appearance of bracts. In compound forms of inflorescence the bracts are 
placed at the base of the branches of a cyme or of the flower-stalks, but are 
always small and often wanting ; when the cyme is contracted into a head the 
bracts form an involucre outside. If the corolla of a 2-lipped flower having 4 
stamens in unequal pairs is slit up along the front through the lower lip and 
laid out flat, the outer or anterior pair of stamens will be found to overtop the 
inner or posterior pair in all the genera except Nepeta, in which alone the 
inner pair project above the outer. 
For details regarding the fertilisation of the flowers see Muller’s Fertilisation 
of Flowers, p. 469 ; Kerner’s Natural History of Plants, ii. p. 247. 
A. Corolla regular or nearly so, not 2-lipped. 
I. Stamens 2. 
A herb. Leaves glabrous. Flowers in axillary whorls . 10. Lycopus. 
A shrub. Leaves tomentose beneath. Flowers in spikes . 15. Meriandra. 
II. Stamens 4. 
Corolla 4-lobed. 
Filaments bearded. 
Leaves stalked, in pairs ...... 4. Pogostemon. 
Leaves sessile, whorled ...... 5. Dysophylla. 
