Shrubby herb with several decumbent stems to ascending from woody rootstock, forming loose dome shaped cushions; stems to 35 cm long, glabrous. Leaves glabrous, sparsely white-dotted above but smooth; lamina lanceolate, largest 5.5-9.5 x 0.3-0.6 cm, entire or with 1-7 small teeth per side. Spikes 2-10 cm long, 4-16-flowered; peduncle 8-50 (-80) mm long, with 2-3 pairs of sterile bracts near top; fertile bracts glossy, whitish with green margins and veins and apical part, glabrous, lower and middle broadly obovate, 28-35 x 14-20 mm of which the slightly recurved narrowly triangular spinose tip 6-10 mm, on each side with 8-10 teeth of which the longest 4-5 mm. Bracteoles greenish to purplish, 19-22 x 1-2 mm, lanceolate, acute, not widened at base, glabrous. Sepals green or tinged purplish, glabrous to uniformly minutely puberulous, finely ciliate; dorsal 21-24 mm long, 3-5-veined from base with much branched veins near apex, ovate-elliptic with long spathulate apical part and truncate, wavy, irregularly toothed scarious apex; ventral 12-14 mm long, 2-veined from base, ovate, narrowing gradually to a rounded apex without teeth or with 2-3 teeth to 1 mm long; lateral 9-10 mm long, ovate, acute. Corolla white to pale violet or blue with darker veins, 27-28 mm long of which the tube 5-7 mm; limb broadly obovate, 15-18 mm wide, beneath densely hairy all over, central lobe wider than long, truncate, very slightly toothed, narrowed at base; filaments 9-10 mm long, sparsely glandular in basal half; appendage ± 2 mm long, straight, rounded; anthers 4 mm long. Capsule ± 12 mm long; seed not seen.
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