Prostrate or cushion-shaped dwarf shrub or shrubby herb; branches to 30 cm long, minutely puberulous or sparsely so with bulbous-based hairs when young. Leaves glabrous to sparsely sericeous along midrib and with scattered minute bulbous-based hairs; lamina elliptic to slightly obovate, largest 2-6.3 (-7) x 0.5-1.5(-1.8) cm; margin with 1-7 triangular and mucronate teeth per side (rarely some entire); some leaf-axils with rigid spines (undeveloped inflorescences). Spikes 1.5-4.5 cm long, 2-10-flowered; peduncle 1-5 mm long. Lower sterile bracts modified into 2-3 pairs of rigid straw-coloured spines 7-20 mm long, upper with a reduced lamina with a few lateral teeth, lower without a lamina, above these with a single pair of sterile bracts like fertile; fertile bracts green, 3-5-veined from base, transversal veins inconspicuous, sparsely minutely puberulous with bulbous-based hairs, often sericeous-puberulous along midrib, elliptic-obovate, lower and middle 14-25 x 4-9 mm of which the recurved triangular spinose tip 4-8 mm, on each side with (3-)4-5 teeth of which the longest 2-5 mm long. Bracteoles linear-lanceolate, (8-) 12-16 x 0.5-1 mm. Sepals minutely puberulous or sparsely so, densest upwards; dorsal 14-20 mm long, 3-5-veined from base, ovate-elliptic, apical part slightly ligulate or not, narrowing gradually to an acute (rarely 2-toothed) apex, (rarely with a single lateral tooth per side), apical part not becoming scarious; ventral 12-16 mm long, 2-5-veined from base, ovate, narrowing gradually to a truncate apex without teeth or with 2 broad indistinct teeth to 0.5 mm long or with 2 mucronate teeth to 1.5 mm long; lateral ovate 7-9 mm long. Corolla white with purple veins to blue, 20-28 mm long of which the tube 3-5 mm; limb 12-18 mm wide, spathulate, central lobe wider than long or same width as length, truncate to retuse, narrowed at base; filaments 6-9 mm long, glabrous apically and with scattered glands towards base, hairy on the inside near base; appendage 2-3.5 mm long, oblong, broadly rounded; anthers 3-5 mm long. Capsule 10-12 mm long; seed 7-8 x 4-5 mm.
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