Belongs within: Acanthoideae.
Barleria is a pantropical genus of often spiny shrubs and perennial herbs.
Characters (from Flora of Pakistan): Armed or unarmed herbs or shrubs. Leaves petiolate to almost sessile, simple, entire, cystoliths present on both sides. Flowers often large and showy yellow, blue-purple or white, in axillary or terminal spikes; bracts entire or serrate, often spinescent or ciliate rarely absent; bracteoles linear or absent. Calyx deeply four-lobed; lobes imbricate, unequal, narrow, occasionally spit tipped. Corolla infundibuliform or salver-shaped; tube slender, straight incurved; limb subequally five-lobed or obscurely two-lipped, upper lip four-lobed, lobes patent, imbricate, rounded or ovate. Stamens 4, all fertile and more or less exserted, or two posterior ones staminodial and partly sterile or absent, anthers dithecous, oblong, muticous, emucronate. Ovary oblong-conical, two- or four-ovuled; style thickened at apex; stigma minutely bifid or entire. Capsule ovoid-oblong elliptic-obovoid, flattened, more or less stipitate, pointed above, seminiferous below the middle, two- or four-seeded. Seeds flat, ovate or orbiculate, covered with hygroscopic hairs, rarely glabrous, on hooked funicles.
<==Barleria (see below for synonymy)SV00 |--B. (subg. Barleria) fulvostellataD08 `--B. subg. PrionitisD08 |--B. sect. CavirostrataD08 | |--B. (sect. *Cavirostrata) grandis Hochst. ex Nees 1847D08 | |--B. descampsii Lindau 1897 (see below for synonymy)D08 | |--B. gibsoniiD08 | |--B. gibsonioidesD08 | |--B. grandipetala De Wild. 1915D08 | |--B. montanaD08 | |--B. prattensisD08 | `--B. richardsiae Darbyshire 2008D08 |--B. sect. SomaliaD08 | |--B. alataD08 | `--B. lancifoliaD08 `--B. (sect. Stellatohirta) splendensD08 Barleria incertae sedis: B. acanthoidesPP07 B. bispinosaSV00 B. coeruleaT-W89 B. cristataP03 B. damarensisCV06 B. dinteriCV06 B. hochstetteriSV00 B. jubataCV06 B. kaloxytonaCV06 B. lanceolataCV06 B. meeuseanaCV06 B. merxmuelleriCV06 B. micansSV00 B. oenotheroidesSV00 B. prionitisOP01 B. repensSV00 B. solitariaCV06 B. strigosaP03
Barleria [incl. Barleriacanthus, Barlerianthus, Barleriosiphon, Barlerites, Dicranacanthus, Isaloa, Parabarleria, Pseudo-Barleria]SV00
Barleria descampsii Lindau 1897 [incl. B. argenteo-calycina De Wild. 1915, B. briartii De Wils. & Durand in Durand & De Wildeman 1900, B. paludosa Moore 1910]D08
*Type species of generic name indicated
References
[CV06] Craven, P., & P. Vorster. 2006. Patterns of plant diversity and endemism in Namibia. Bothalia 36 (2): 175–189.
[D08] Darbyshire, I. 2008. A reassessment of the status of Barleria sect. Cavirostrata (Acanthaceae) in tropical Africa, with a new species, B. richardsiae, described from the Tanzania-Zambia border region. Kew Bulletin 63 (4): 601–611.
[OP01] Olmstead, R. G., C. W. dePamphilis, A. D. Wolfe, N. D. Young, W. J. Elisons & P. A. Reeves. 2001. Disintegration of the Scrophulariaceae. American Journal of Botany 88 (2): 348–361.
[PP07] Pandey, R. P., & P. M. Padhye. 2007. Studies on phytodiversity of Arid Machia Safari Park-Kailana in Jodhpur (Rajasthan). Bulletin of the Botanical Survey of India 49: 15–78.
[P03] Paul, T. K. 2003. Botanical observations on the Purulia pumped storage hydropower project area, Bagmundi Hills, Purulia district, West Bengal. Bulletin of the Botanical Survey of India 45: 121–142.
[SV00] Scotland, R. W., & K. Vollesen. 2000. Classification of Acanthaceae. Kew Bulletin 55 (3): 513–589.
[T-W89] Tenison-Woods, J. E. 1889. On the vegetation of Malaysia. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, series 2, 4 (1): 9–106, pls 1–9.