Jamesbrittenia

Jamesbrittenia is a genus of shrubs and subshrubs, suffrutices and herbs in the Scrophulariaceae or sutera family. The stems are leafy, the glandular, haired or scaled plants aromatic, often foetid.

The variously shaped leaves are often opposite but sometimes alternate higher up on some species. Leaves may also appear fascicled or grow on small side-branches. Leaf margins are usually toothed.

The flowers grow solitary from leaf or bract axils, sometimes grouped in upper-stem racemes. Flower colours are mostly mauve, blue or white with yellow throats. Bracts are uncommon, where present never growing against the pedicel or calyx. The calyx is five-lobed.

The corolla is as well, but two-lipped. The two-lobed upper and three-lobed lower lips are indistinct to strongly differentiated, the lobes spreading around the small corolla mouth. The corolla tube is cylindrical, abruptly expanding near the mouth in a knee-like kink.

There are four stamens in unequal pairs, growing inside the tube from where the kink is positioned and not long enough to be exserted. There is a nectary, sometimes swollen into a notable gland. The about triangular ovary is superior (as are all in Scrophulariaceae). It has two locules with many ovules each. The style is short, the stigma included in the tube.

The fruit is a capsule with a slit at the valve-tips. The oblong seeds are red or brown.

There are 83 Jamesbrittenia species, one in Asia found as far as India, the rest in Africa and 74 of them in southern Africa. More species occur in the western, arid, winter rainfall parts than in the east. There is a geographic break between the southern African and the northerly species.

Some species are used medicinally, while others featured in making dyes. Several profusely flowering species are popular in horticulture, resulting in hybrids and cultivars that escalate usage. Many local species are browsed by game and stock.

The plant in picture is Jamesbrittenia tortuosa (Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok 2015; Manning, 2007; Pooley, 1998; Wikipedia).