Description: Perennial herb, with creeping rootstock; branches 4-angular, ascending, hairy.
Leaves opposite; margins crenate to toothed; petiolate.
Flowers solitary in the axil of upper leaves; internodes between flowers elongate. Sepals unequally fused, 2-lipped, with a fold protruding from the upper lip. Corolla 2-lipped; lower lip broad-spathulate and vaguely 3-lobed; upper lip with 3 unequal lobes. Stamens 4, fertile, with longer stamens exserted beyond the upper lip; anthers 2-locular. Ovary deeply 4-lobed; style gynobasic; stigma often unequally 2-fid.
Fruit usually with 4 mericarps; mericarps almost globose not keeled.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 300 species, cosmopolitan except for southern Africa. Australia: 3 species (2 species possibly endemic, 1 species naturalized), Qld, N.S.W., Vic., Tas., S.A.
Text by B. J. Conn
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Branches with pedicellate glandular hairs and simple hairs; corolla c. 10 mm long, with lower lip much longer than upper lip | Scutellaria mollis |
| Branches glabrous or with simple, mostly antrorse hairs only; corolla c. 5 mm long, with lower lip slightly longer than upper lip | 2 |
| 2 | Leaves ovate, less than 2 cm long, often cordate basally; margins crenate to lobed | Scutellaria humilis |
| Leaves narrow-ovate or narrow-triangular to narrow-oblong, 2–2.6 cm long, hastate basally and often with acuminate auricles; margins shallowly sinuate or entire
Back to 1 | Scutellaria racemosa |
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