Greek salpinx — tube, glossa — tongue, referring to the resemblance of the style to a tongue.

Erect, often sticky, annual, biennial or perennial herbs. Leaves alternate, broadly lanceolate, simple, entire to lobed or cut, wavy-edged. Flowers solitary, opposite or axillary. Calyx tubular, 5-lobed. Corolla funnel-shaped, with 5 notched lobes. Fertile stamens 4. Ovary 2-chambered. Fruit cylindrical to ovoid.

Grown as bedding and pot plants, often F1 hybrids, tall and dwarf, in a range of elaborately multicoloured and veined, velvety, trumpet-shaped flowers. The hybrid background of cultivars is uncertain but certainly includes S. sinuata Ruiz & Pav., Painted Tongue.

Cultivar groups: Bolero hybrids Dwarf, fast growing, in a range of colours. Casino hybrids Dwarf, compact, the flowers veined in yellow, pink, orange, red and purple.

Seed.

Resembles the Petunia but generally with more elaborate colouring and veining and 5 prominently notched corolla lobes.

2 species from the S Andes.

Hunziker & Subils (1979).

Source: Spencer, R. (2002). Solanaceae. In: Spencer, R.. Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 4. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 3. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.