Citation: Lour., Fl. Cochinch. 66 (1790).

Derivation: Greek phylon, meaning a tribe or race, also a swarm or school; probably in reference to the spreading mat-like growth.

Synonymy: Lippia sensu Benth., Fl. Aust. 5:34 (1870), non L. 10 species, widely distributed in subtropical and tropical America, with 1 or 2 in the warmer parts of the Old World. Some forms are widely cultivated for lawns or as soil-binders.

Common name: None

Description:
Perennial procumbent or creeping herbs; stem trailing or ascending, often rooting from the nodes of creeping branches, densely covered with appressed medifixed acute hairs; leaves undivided, usually serrate-dentate, often fleshy.

Inflorescence spicate, axillary, pedunculate, usually at first capitate, later cylindrical, densely many-flowered, usually elongate in fruit; flowers sessile, each one in the axil of a single bract; bracts often closely imbricate; calyx membranous, ovoid-campanulate or compressed, with 2 keels or wings and 2-lobed, each lobe either entire or 2-toothed, or the rim 2- or 4-fid or 4-dentate; corolla cylindrical with spreading lobes; tube cylindrical or slightly dilated upwards, straight or slightly curved, with limbs 2-lipped and 4-parted; lobes flat and spreading, rounded or emarginate; stamens 4, in pairs of unequal length, included near the middle of the corolla tube or scarcely exserted; filaments short; anthers without appendages; ovary 2-celled, with 1 ovule in each cell; style short; stigma thick, oblique or curved.

Fruit small, dry, enclosed by the calyx, ellipsoid, compressed, breaking up into 2 plano-convex mericarps.

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available