Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 634 (1753).

Derivation: Diminutive of the Latin mimus, mimic actor; evidently alluding to a resemblance of the corolla mouth and limb to a mask.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Monkey-flowers.

Description:
Annual or perennial herbs, conspicuously or obscurely gland-dotted; leaves opposite.

Flowers sporadic or in racemes, single in axils of leaf-like bracts; bracteoles 0; sepals fused into a 5-angled tube with 5 teeth; corolla 5-lobed, either more or less rotate or 2-lipped, the upper lip 2-lobed, the lower lip longer or almost equal, 3-lobed; stamens 4, in pairs of unequal length, the anthers of each pair joined, with 2 confluent but divergent cells; stigmatic lobes 2, equal (sometimes unequal outside Aust.), irritable, receptive on the inner surface, closing together when triggered.

Capsule included in an enlarged calyx, loculicidal with the septa united to the 2 valves or to the central column.

Distribution:  About 100 species, native to the Americas, eastern Asia, India, Australasia and southern Africa, but most diverse in western North America; in Australia 4 native species with 2 naturalised. (A. L. Grant (1925) A monograph of the genus Mimulus, Ann. Miss. Bot. Gard. 11:199-389).

Biology: No text

Uses: M. luteus L., monkey-flower, is well known in cultivation.

Key to Species:

1. Plant glandular-villous; leaves with a blade 2-6 cm long, ovate- denticulate, petiolate; calyx 8-12 mm long; corolla yellow	M. moschatus 2.
1. Plant glabrous or eglandular-puberulent; leaves entire, either ovate, shortly petiolate and 0.1-0.6 cm long or linear-oblong to ovate, sessile, 0.5-3 cm long; calyx 2.5-6 mm long; corolla blue, purple or pink, rarely white with a yellow tube or palate
2. Plant eglandular-pubescent, at least on young parts and on the rim of the calyx; leaves connected by a ridge across the nodes; corolla more or less rotate, the mouth open, without a raised palate	M. prostratus 3.
2. Plant glabrous; leaves not connected across the nodes; corolla distinctly 2-lipped, the mouth more or less closed by a prominent raised palate
3. Leaves sessile, ovate to linear-oblong, 0.5-3 cm long; pedicels 1-6 cm long; plant ascending to erect	M. gracilis 1.
3. Leaves subsessile or very shortly petiolate, the blade ovate, usually broadly so, 0.1-0.4 rarely 0.6 cm long; pedicels 0.1-1 cm long; plant prostrate, sometimes with erect branchlets, rarely erect	M. repens 4.

Author: Not yet available