The genus Justicia was first described by Linnaeus (1753) consisting of 11 species: J. adhatoda, J. betonica, J. chinenfis, J. echioides, J. ecbolium, J. hyffopifolia, J. procumbens, J. purpurea, J. repens, J. sexangularis and J. uafuta. The genus was named in honour of James Justice (1698-1783), a Scottish horticulturist and botanist. Justicia has been one of the most controversial genera of Acanthaceae with regard to its taxonomy and nomenclature since Linnaeus’ time. After published work on Justicia by Linnaeus, Britton (1918) chosen J. adhatoda as the type, but it seemed to be the historical type of the generic name when many authors such as Nees (1847), Bentham (1876). Manning & Norris (1985) transferred J. adhatoda to the genus Adhatoda. Hence, J. hyssopifolia was designated under the Article 8 of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) in the Vienna Code (McNeill et al., 2006) as a new type of the genus by Hitchcock & Green (1929) based on a specimen in the Linnaean herbarium (LINN 28.10). Jarvis (1992) proposed this species as the conserved type of the genus Justicia and its acceptance would evidently maintain usage of the generic name.