Plants 5-25 cm. tall; stems simple or sometimes branched, glabrous, terete, the upper part purplish, the underground part white; leaves lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, sessile, purplish, scale-like, about 1.5-3 mm. long and 1 mm. broad; stem 1-or sparsely-flowered, sometimes with few loose-flowered cymes at the top; flowers nodding or horizontal, 8-13 mm. long; perianth campanu-late, blue, violet, or purplish, sometimes white, darker in the ovary and at the tips of the lobes, often fading to white toward the base but with darker longitudinal stripes (honey-guides), outer lobes ovate, inner lobes lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, as long as the outer lobes, obtuse, tubular part 3 times the length of the lobes; stamens inserted in crescent-shaped sacks; connective-arms broader than the filaments, wings broader than the stamens; stigmas patelli-form, margin papillate, often stuck with clusters of pollen tubes; ovary obovoid, reaching a fifth of the length of the whole flowers; capsule ovoid or obovoid, sometimes nearly globose, 4-6 mm. long, crowned by the dried perianth; seeds brown, reticulate, angulate or acute at both sides, often slightly curved.
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Stems often purplish, 3–27 cm. Leaves often purplish, 1.5–4 × 0.5–1.5 mm. Inflorescences: floral bracts 2–4 mm. Flowers 8–14 mm; perianth purple or white with purplish longitudinal stripes inside throat and purplish perianth lobes; lobes erect, incurved and converging but not connate; outer lobes ovate to triangular, 1.5–4 mm; inner lobes lanceolate, ± as long as outer. Capsules 3–6 mm.
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