VERBENACEAE
General description:- Herbs or shrubs with opposite or verticillate leaves.
Flowers:- 4- to 5-merous, weakly zygomorphic. Calyx usually small. Corolla rotate. Ovary superior, initially 1-locular but becoming 2- to 4-locular by the development of septa; style terminal; ovules usually 1 in each loculus.
Fruit:- Usually a drupe, rarely a capsule or dividing into 2 or 4 1-seeded nutlets.
LANTANA
General description:- Shrubs with simple leaves.
Flowers:- In corymbs. Corolla weakly 2-lipped. Stamens included.
Fruit:- A small drupe.
Key features:-
1) Leaves simple, opposite.
2) Flowers yellow to red.
PHYLA
General description:- Shrubs or herbs with simple leaves.
Flowers:- In spikes. Corolla weakly 2-lipped. Stamens included.
Fruit:- Nutlets, 1-2-seeded
Key features:-
1) Most leaves in whorls of 3.
2) Flowers lilac or white.
3) Calyx 2-lipped.
4) Fruit of 2 nutlets.
VERBENA
General description:- Annual or perennial herbs or small shrubs.
Leaves:- Opposite or rarely in whorls of 3.
Flowers:- In bracteate spikes, usually arranged in panicles or corymbs. Calyx tubular, 5-ribbed and unequally 5-dentate. Corolla with a slender tube and abruptly widening limb (hypocrateriform), weakly 2-lipped, with the lobes obtuse or notched at the apex (emarginate). Stamens inserted at about the middle of the corolla-tube, included. Stigma unequally 2-lobed.
Fruit:- Separating at maturity into 4 nutlets.
Key features:-
1) Herbs.
2) Calyx with 5 nearly equal teeth.
3) Fruit of 4 nutlets.
VITEX
General description:- Shrubs with digitate leaves.
Flowers:- In cymes forming a terminal, paniculate or spike-like inflorescence. Corolla 2-lipped, the upper lip with 2, the lower with 3 lobes. Stamens exserted.
Fruit:- A small drupe.