Annual or perennial herb, dwarf shrubs, glabrous or pubescent with glandular or eglandular hairs. Stems prostrate to erect or climbing. Leaves mostly alternate, simple or sometimes deeply divided, entire, dentate or lobed, hastate or sagittate, petiolate to subsessile. Flowers pedicellate, solitary in leaf-axils or in bracteate racemes. Calyx deeply 5-lobed. Corolla limb 2-lipped, the upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, spur conical or cylindrical. Stamens 4, 2 long and 2 short, included, staminode minute, anther glabrous, forming ring-like structure. Style simple, erect. Stigma capitate. Capsule dehiscence valvate. Seeds tuberculate, frequently papillate. 

A genus of 10 species, distributed in Canary and Cape Verde Islands, N. Africa, Northeast Africa, Arabia, South, Central and South-West Asia to India and Myanmar. 

In the APG III classification (2009) Nanorrhinum is included in the expanded family Plantaginaceae.