7360.000 Platostoma P. Beauv.

Annual or perennial herbs, stems arising from a taproot, slender rhizome or woody rootstock. Leaves opposite, petiolate; upper leaves sometimes basally pale or coloured. Inflorescence lax to dense in more than 3-flowered verticils; bracts usually coloured. Calyx bilabiate, rounded in cross section; upper lip with 1 or 3 lobes. Corolla white, pink or bluish to purple; bilabiate with a short tube, dilating at throat, pubescent to densely villose within; posterior lip erect, median lobes slightly smaller. Fruit consisting of nutlets, black, obovoid, with minute longitudinal ridges; sometimes pubescent at apex; not producing mucilage when wet.

Comment: Platostoma rotundifolium (Briq.) A.J. Paton is recorded as occurring in Zimbabwe in Mapaura and Timberlake, 2004, p. 56. This was presumably based on specimens of this species (possibly held under the older name of Geniosporum angolense Briq.) in SRGH. However, Paton in FZ does not record P. rotundifolium for Zimbabwe and furthermore there were no specimens from Zimbabwe found in SRGH on 30 September 2015 which could be P. rotundifolium and we have therefore removed this species as occurring in Zimbabwe.

Worldwide: 45 species in the Old World tropics.

Zimbabwe: 1 taxon.