Martynia

(-tin'e-ah.) (Bot.) A genus of Pedaliacex, consisting of branching herbaceous plants covered with clammy hairs, and having roundish somewhat heart shaped leaves, and spikes of flowers, of which the calyx is divided into five nearly equal pieces, and the irregular bell-shaped corolla is unequally five-lobed and puffed out below. The fruit is a hard. woody wrinkled capsule terminating in two curved beaks or hooks, and is divided into four cells containing several large seeds. [s. 581]