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The Western Australian Herbarium’s collections management system, WAHerb, and DBCA’s flora taxonomic names application, WACensus, have been set to read-only mode since 1 October 2025. Recent taxonomic changes are not currently being reflected in Florabase, herbarium collections, or the census. Due to the rapidly approaching holiday season and associated agency and facility soft closures, along with the substantial work involved in data mapping, cleaning, and verification, the migration to the new collection management software is not expected to occur before 1 March 2026, when a further update will be provided. Please reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns.

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Mimulus L.

Reference
Sp.Pl. [Linnaeus] 2:634 (1753)
Name Status
Current

Scientific Description

Common name. Monkey-flowers. Family Scrophulariaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Herbs. Annual, or perennial; plants with a basal concentration of leaves, or with neither basal nor terminal concentrations of leaves; to 0.35 m high. Hydrophytic, or helophytic, or mesophytic; when hydrophytic, rooted. Leaves of aquatics submerged, or emergent; minute to medium-sized; opposite, or whorled; ‘herbaceous’, or leathery, or membranous; petiolate to sessile; connate, or not connate; aromatic, or without marked odour; simple; epulvinate. Leaf blades entire; linear, or ovate, or oblong, or elliptic; pinnately veined; cordate, or attenuate at the base, or cuneate at the base, or rounded at the base. Mature leaf blades adaxially glabrous, or pubescent, or villous; abaxially glabrous, or pubescent, or villous. Leaves without stipules. Leaf blade margins entire, or serrate, or dentate. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Hydathodes present (occasionally), or absent. Hairs present, or absent; glandular hairs present, or absent. Stem anatomy. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite. Entomophilous.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers solitary, or aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; axillary; in racemes. The terminal inflorescence unit cymose, or racemose. Inflorescences terminal, or axillary. Flowers pedicellate; bracteate; ebracteolate; small to medium-sized; regular, or very irregular; zygomorphic; 5 merous; tetracyclic. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk present. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx present; 5; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; lobed; toothed. Calyx lobes markedly shorter than the tube. Calyx erect; imbricate, or valvate; campanulate, or tubular; regular, or unequal but not bilabiate (lobes slightly unequal); persistent; accrescent; with the median member posterior. Corolla present; 5; 1 -whorled; gamopetalous; lobed; imbricate, or valvate; when regular, rotate; regular, or bilabiate; hairy abaxially, or glabrous abaxially; hairy adaxially, or glabrous adaxially; plain, or with contrasting markings; white, or yellow, or red, or pink, or purple, or blue. Androecium 4. Androecial members adnate (to the corolla); markedly unequal; coherent (paired anthers connate); 1 -whorled. Stamens 4; all inserted at the same level; remaining included; didynamous; all more or less similar in shape; reduced in number relative to the adjacent perianth; oppositisepalous. Anthers cohering (in pairs); dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; bilocular (cells confluent but divergent); tetrasporangiate. Gynoecium 2 carpelled. The pistil 2 celled. Gynoecium non-petaloid; syncarpous; synstylovarious to eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary plurilocular; 2 locular. Gynoecium median; stylate. Styles 1; attenuate from the ovary, or from a depression at the top of the ovary; apical. Stigmas 1; 2 - lobed (lobes equal or unequal, receptive on the inner surface, closing together when touched). Placentation axile, or apical. Ovules 50 per locule (to ‘many’); pendulous to ascending; non-arillate; anatropous, or campylotropous, or hemianatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit non-fleshy; dehiscent; a capsule. Capsules loculicidal (with the septa remaining attached to the 2 valves or to the central placental column), or septicidal and loculicidal (into 4 valves). Fruit 50 seeded (to ‘many’). Seeds endospermic. Endosperm oily. Seeds minute. Cotyledons 2. Embryo straight to curved.

Special features. Corolla tube exceeding the calyx; straight. The upper lip of the corolla incorporating 2 members, the lower 3; (posterior, adaxial) lip of the corolla bilobed. Lower (abaxial) lip of the corolla 3 lobed.

Geography, cytology, number of species. Native of Australia. Not endemic to Australia. Australian states and territories: Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Australian Capital Territory, and Tasmania. Northern Botanical Province.

Etymology. From the Latin mimulus; a diminutive of mimus (a mimic actor); refers to the mask-like appearance of the flowers.