S. NAZIMUDDIN AND M. QAISER
Bigelowia DC.
Erect or prostrate annual or perennial herbs, stem tetragonal. Leaves opposite, young leaves fascicled or falsely verticillate, sessile or shortly petioled; stipules connate with petiole, more or less sheathing both sides into many setae -like structures or fimbriate. Flowers usually in axillary or terminal heads or verticillate, generally subtended by leafy bracts, sometimes cymose or corymbose, small, white or Noe. Calyx-tube ovate, persistent 2-4 lobed. Corolla infundibular, hemispherical or salverform, 4-lobed. Stamens 4, exserted. Stigma bifid or undivided. Capsule crowned with persistent calyx-limb, bilocular, mature capsule dehiscing septicidaly from the apex; coccus one seeded with an equal longitudinal cleft, dehiscing longitudinaly. Seeds ovate, oblong, ventrally marked with longitudinal grooves.
A genus of about 150 species, distributed mainly in warm and temperate regions. Represented in Pakistan by two species.
Recently Verdcourt On Polhill, Fl. Trop. East Afr. (Rubiaceae-I): 339. 1976) merged Borreria G.F. Mey. into Spermacoce L. while agreeing with Verdcourt that differences in Borreria and Spermacoce am small, nonetheless the technical characters of fruit dehiscence are adequate to maintain them as two separate genera.
