BALLOTAL. - BLACK-HOREHOUND
Scientific Description:
Perennial herbs. Cauline leaves petiolate, usually cordate at base, crenate to dentate, like the stem bearing dendroid, stellate, fasciculate or simple hairs, often with subsessile glands. Verticillasters few to many, usually dense, subtended by floral leaves; bracteoles usually narrow. Calyx tubular to obconical, 10-ribbed, hairy, narrowly to widely dilated above into ± divergent to patent toothed limb; teeth 5−10 or more. Corolla purple, pink or white, hairy outside, 2-lipped; upper lip straight and deeply bifid, or ± emarginate and concave, often cristate. Stamens parallel, lower pair longer, anthers positioned beneath upper lip; anther thecae divaricate. Nutlets smooth, obtuse or truncate.
Reference:
Davis PH & Doroszenko A (1982). Ballota L., In: Davis PH (ed.), Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 7: 156.
Public Description:
Ballota is a genus of perennial herbs, known as “black-horehound”, and has the highest diversity in the Mediterranean region, and naturally spreads in more isolated places such as South Africa, Central Asia, Northern Europe, and the east of North Atlantic islands. There are approximately 30 species in the world and 12 species (17 taxa) in Türkiye. They are used as food plants by the larvae of some butterfly and moth species.
References:
Anonymous 1 (2016). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballota/, Accessed date: 14.02.2016.
Anonymous 2 (2016). https://gobotany.newenglandwild.org/genus/ballota/, Accessed date: 14.02.2016.
Anonymous 3 (2016). http://www.theplantlist.org/1.1/browse/A/Lamiaceae/Ballota/, Accessed date: 14.02.2016.
Tezcan F (2012). Ballota L., In: Güner, A., Aslan, S., Ekim, T., Vural, M. & Babaç, M.T. (eds.), Türkiye Bitkileri Listesi (Damarlı Bitkiler). Nezahat Gökyiğit Botanik Bahçesi ve Flora Araştırmaları Derneği Yayını. İstanbul, pp. 548–550.
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