Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Herbs, shrubs or trees, glabrous or with unbranched hairs; branches and branchlets mostly tetragonal; leaves opposite, decussate, simple or compound, exstipulate; inflorescence axillary or terminal, cymose or racemose, corymbose or thyrsoid, paniculate or spicate.

Flowers zygomorphic, bisexual, hypogynous; calyx tubular, persistent, usually accrescent, mostly 4-, rarely 2-, 5- or 7-lobed or -toothed or sometimes subentire; corolla tubular, sometimes 2-lipped; lobes 4 or 5, rarely more, imbricate in bud; stamens mostly 4 and in pairs of unequal length or reduced to 2, epipetalous; anthers 2-celled; ovary superior, mostly bicarpellary, syncarpous, entire or subentire, 2-4-celled, with 1 or 2 ovules in each cell; style terminal (or more or less gynobasic in Faradaya, outside S. Aust.), entire or 2-lobed.

Fruit a dry schizocarp, or a drupe with a thick and dry or fleshy exocarp and a more or less hard endocarp, 2-4-celled and indehiscent when mature or dehiscent into 1- or 2-celled pyrenes; seeds with scanty or no endosperm.

Distribution:  76 genera and 3,000 species, found in all parts of the world except the driest hottest parts of the Sahara Desert and in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and most abundant in the tropics. The family is closely related to Chloanthaceae and Labiatae. Numerous ornamentals, as well as medicinal and otherwise economic forms, are included in the family.

Biology: No text

Taxonomic notes: The family Avicenniaceae and the two families Symphoremaceae and Nyctanthaceae from outside Australia are often included in Verbenaceae as subfamilies or tribes. The fruits of Verbena and Phyla are schizocarps breaking into 2 or 4 mericarps (see Labiatae and Boraginaceae for definition).

Key to Genera:

1. Calyx 5-dentate, with 5 strong ribs or 5-angled; style 2-lobed or 2-fid apically; fruit dry, a schizocarp with 4 l-seeded mericarps	VERBENA 3.
1. Calyx 2-partite, thinly membranous, not ribbed; style entire, stigma thick; fruit fleshy or dry, breaking into 2 mericarps
2. Erect or scrambling shrubs, patently hairy, aculeate or not; calyx-rim truncate or shallowly toothed; corolla 4- or 5-lobed; fruit, drupaceous, usually with a fleshy and juicy outer part and hard inner one	LANTANA 1.
2. Prostrate herbs, rooting at the nodes, appressed-pubescent, unarmed; calyx-rim deeply 2-partite or 2-lobed; corolla 4-lobed; fruit dry, breaking into mericarps with a thin or papery outer layer	PHYLA 2.

Author: Prepared by A. A. Munir