Habit: Annual, often glandular, sometimes brown-staining.
Leaf: opposite; proximal petioled.
Inflorescence: bracted, often interrupted; flowers 1--many in leaf axils.
Flower: calyx lobes 5, generally glabrous on inner surface; corolla +- pea-like, uniformly pale, or generally with pale regions, especially throat and base of upper lip (+- uniformly dark in
Collinsia greenei), generally glabrous outside, tube short, throat +- angled to tube, +- pouched on upper side, lips generally +- = throat, upper lobes 2, +- reflexed, lower lobes 3, lateral spreading, central lobe keeled, enclosing stamens and style; stamens 4, attached unequally near throat base, spur at base of upper filaments > 1 mm, vestigial, or 0; staminode gland-like; style > 2 mm, stigma minutely 2-lobed.
Fruit: septicidal and loculicidal (valves 2-lobed).
Seed: generally few, +- oblong, generally plump; inner surface +- concave.
Species In Genus: +- 20 species: North America, especially California.
Etymology: (Zaccheus Collins, Philadelphia botanist, 1764--1831)
Note: Late-season flowers generally atypically small.
Jepson eFlora Author: Michael S. Park & Elizabeth Chase Neese
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Collinsia
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