Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Annual or perennial herbs with leaves alternate or rarely opposite, without stipules.

Flowers bisexual or unisexual, usually borne in cymose inflorescences but sometimes apparently racemose or reduced to solitary flowers (see note below); calyx with a short tube above the ovary and 5 lobes, persistent; corolla actinomorphic to zygomorphic, with 5 lobes often 2-lipped, the tube often split along the upper surface; stamens 5, free or fused to the corolla tube and above that into a column around the style; ovary inferior or semi-inferior with a beak protruding, 2-celled, usually with numerous axile anatropous ovules.

Fruit a capsule dehiscing loculidially and sometimes septicidally at the apex, rarely indehiscent; seeds with endosperm.

Distribution:  60-70 genera with over 2,000 species of mainly temperate and subtropical regions of the world.

Biology: No text

Taxonomic notes: Plants with the anthers fused into a column around the style are sometimes placed in a separate family, but here it is accepted as a subfamily Lobelioideae of the Campanulaceae, following F. E. Wimmer (1953) Pflanzenr. 276b. The inflorescence of this family is usually compound-cymose but due to various reductions it sometimes appears to be racemose, spicate or with axillary flowers. However, sometimes the indicative bracts are absent so that the derivation cannot easily be determined. Hence the stalk below the flower is termed a peduncle when without secondary bracts and a pedicel when these are present at least in some plants.

Key to Genera:

1. Stamens fused to the corolla tube and above that into a column around the style
2. Corolla actinomorphic or almost so and without a split along the upper surface of the tube	ISOTOMA 1.
2. Corolla zygomorphic and 2-lipped as well as with a split along the upper surface
3. Fruit a capsule dehiscing by apical valves; seeds smooth or finely ridged
4. Stigma lobes broadly ovate; seeds smooth, angular to triangular in section, or ovoid and laterally compressed	LOBELIA 2.
4. Stigma oblong-oblanceolate; seeds with vertical ridges, narrow-ellipsoid to almost cylindrical	MONOPSIS 3.
3. Fruit indehiscent; seeds pitted.	PRATIA 4.
1. Stamens free	WAHLENBERGIA 5.

Author: Prepared by H. R. Toelken; Wahlenbergia by P. J. Smith