Plants herbs, shrubs, or subshrubs; Leaves in pseudowhorls or 4, the upper pair in each whorl smaller than the lower, sessile or almost so. Flowers in spikelike cymes. each flower subtended by a bract, or the cymes reduced to a solitary or seemingly solitary flower subtended by (3-)4(-5) bractes; bracts leathery, usually toothed; bracteoles 2 or absent, usually narrow. calyces divided to the base into 4 lobes, the upper lobe usually longer than the others; corollas 1-lipped; tubes short; limbs split on the back, resulting in formation of a 3-5-lobed lower lip; stamens 4, the lower pair with wide, flattened filaments that are usually divided at the top into a short anther-bearing branch and a tooth-like appendage, upper part with linear fliaments; anthers 1-celled; ovaries 2-celled with 2 ovules per cells. Capsules ovoid-ellipsoid, woody, with 2(-4) seeds); seeds flattened, with long, branched, hygroscopic hairs.
There are about 180 species of Blepharis, all native to the Old World tropics or subtropics.
