Ortela

Marsypianthes chamaedrys, known in Latin America as hortelã-do-campo, ortela, colita de alacrán, or boia-caá, is an annual or short-lived perennial herb of the Lamiaceae, native from southern Mexico and the West Indies south through Central America and tropical South America to Argentina. It typically grows 20-60 cm tall as a much-branched, somewhat sprawling herb of pastures, roadsides, savannas, and disturbed open ground. The stems are quadrangular and softly hairy; leaves are opposite, ovate to rhombic, with crenate-serrate margins and a strongly aromatic, mint-like odor when crushed. Small two-lipped flowers are borne in dense axillary verticillasters subtended by bracts, with corollas blue to violet, the lower lip three-lobed. The distinctive fruits are four flattened, winged or grooved nutlets enclosed in a saccate, accrescent calyx (the genus name means 'bag-flower').