Ruellia L.
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Authority
Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.
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Family
Acanthaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Description - Perennial herbs, or shrubs, mostly pubescent, with entire or rarely dentate leaves and large flowers, solitary or clustered in the axils, or cymose in terminal panicles. Calyx 5-cleft or 5-parted, the segments narrow. Corolla funnelform or salverform, the tube usually narrow, slightly enlarged above, the limb spreading, 5-lobed, the lobes obtuse. Stamens 4, didynamous. Anthersacs not mucronate at the base. Apex of the style recurved; stigma simple, or of 2 unequal lobes. Capsule oblong or club-shaped. Seeds compressed, ovate or orbicular, attached by their edges to the retinacula. [Named for I. De la Ruelle, 1474-1537, an early French herbalist.] About 200 species, mainly of tropical America. Type species: Euellia tuberosa L.