Anthacanthus Nees

• Authority

  Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.

• Family

  Acanthaceae

• Scientific Name

  Anthacanthus Nees

• Description

  Description - Slender, much-branched shrubs armed with opposite axillary, curved or straight spines, the leaves small, entire, often fascicled in the axils, the solitary or fascicled flowers axillary, slender-peduncled. Calyx 5-cleft. Tube of the small corolla cylindric, somewhat enlarged above, the limb spreading, unequally 5-lobed. Stamens 2; filaments short; anthers oblong, 2-celled; staminodia 2, clavate or filiform. Style filiform; ovules 2 in each cavity of the ovary. Capsule oblong, stipitate. Seeds 4 or fewer, compressed, tubercled. [Greek, spiny flower.] About 6 species, natives of the West Indies. Type species: Justicia spinosa Jacq.