Citation: I.M. Johnston, Greek neatos, the lowest; sterna, stamen; referring to the very low position of attachment of the stamens to the corolla tube.

Synonymy: Lithospermum L., Sp. Pl. 132 (1753), partly. A monotypic genus found from the Canary Islands throughout the Mediterranean region but rare in the eastern parts.

Common name: None

Description:
Annuals with more or less appressed coarse hairs of similar size, little-branched and mainly from the base; leaves constantly alternate and sessile, densely clustered at the base becoming more widely spaced above.

Inflorescence with I to several recurved monochasia with sessile flowers arranged in 2 dense rows, with bracts longer than or as long as the flowering calyx; sepals scarcely connate basally, slightly elongating after flowering; corolla regular, cylindrical, hairy on the outside as well as the inside particularly in the throat, with a ring of nectary scales near the base just below the anthers; stamens inserted in the lower third of the corolla tube, with anthers almost sessile, with a small terminal appendage; ovary 4-lobed, with a style inserted near the base, thin, short (to one-third of the length of the corolla tube) and with an included 2-lobed stigma.

Fruit with 4 mericarps splitting off the central gynobase; mericarps ovoid, drawn into a smooth terminal beak without a vertical keel and with bulging shoulders on either side, often tuberculate, with a broad basal attachment scar.

Biology: No text

Author: J. Arnold Arb. 34:5 (1953).