Asarina

Asarina is a flowering plant genus of only one species, Asarina procumbens Mill. the trailing snapdragon, which is native to France and Spain and introduced in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Hungary. Originally placed in the Scrophulariaceae (figwort family), the genus has more recently been moved to the Plantaginaceae (plantain family). Species from North America formerly placed in the genus Asarina are now placed in Holmgrenanthe, Lophospermum, Mabrya and Maurandya, as well as Neogaerrhinum. Asarina is now regarded as exclusively an Old World genus.

==Description== The single remaining species of the now monotypic genus, A. procumbens is a foetid, strongly pubescent, viscid subshrub of trailing/mat-forming habit reaching a height of only 10-20cm. The somewhat woody main stems give rise to lax creeping/cascading stems bearing opposite, long-petioled, hairy, lobed, reniform-to-cordate leaves with crenate and often red-tinged margins. Flowers solitary or in short racemes of only two or three, fragrant, bumblebee-pollinated, borne in the leaf axils. Corolla cream-coloured, somewhat resembling that of Antirrhinum, the tube bearing faint violet striations, the upper part divided into two keel-like lips, the lower bearing paired inflated lobes, concealing the corolla tube, with a three-lobed margin; pistil violet, persistent, stamens four. Base of corolla bearing (starting behind inflated lobes and extending into corolla throat) a dense mat or beard of deep yellow trichomes. Calyx tubular, five-toothed, densely hairy. Peduncle narrow where joined to stem, thickening greatly to junction with fruiting calyx, reflexed so as to lie parallel to capsule. Fruit a dry capsule, glabrous, subglobose, shorter than the calyx and dehiscing at the apex by two openings separating three valves, the central valve bearing the persistent withered pistil. Seeds small, brownish-buff, roughly conical, testa finely incised with deep sinuous furrows. Seed distribution is by epizoochory, the sticky fruiting calyces becoming attached to the fur of mammals or the feathers of birds, allowing the small seeds to trickle from the dry, open capsules.