Slender annual herbs, sparingly branched, to 30 cm tall, the stems wiry, scabrid with white, stout based mostly ascending short hairs and also with finer hairs, mostly somewhat compressed, inconspicuously ridged. Basal leaves obovate, to 10 mm long, glabrate but ciliate on the margin and the costa, the cauline leaves narrowly oblanceolate or linear, to 3 mm wide and 40 mm long, entire or with a few ill-spaced salient teeth, scabrid with stout based short acicular whitish or dirty colored hairs, in age the stout bases remaining as callose punctations, 3-nerved but usually appearing 1-nerved, the petiole not differentiated. Inflores-cence mostly open, a terminal spike to 15 cm long, the outermost bracts ovate, shorter than the calyx except those towards the base of the inflorescence, the inner bract narrower, shorter, both bracts ciliate and scabrid with short, firm, acicular hairs, these often stout based. Flowers mostly white, sometimes blue, pink or purple, the calyx 5-7 mm long, tubular, 10-ribbed, the ribs prominent and conspicuously scabrid, the intermediate areas with obscure venation, mostly glabrous, the 5 teeth often quite unequal, narrowly acuminate, mostly 1-2 mm long, somewhat outcurving; corolla salverform, to 8 mm long, the tube exserted, mostly glabrous outside, the limb 5-lobed, the lobes 2-5 mm long, entire, glabrous, but sometimes minutely papillose ventrally, the throat slightly elevated above the patent lobes, tufted with sturdy hairs, sparingly pilose within with long weak hairs; stamens 4, the filaments inserted about 1/2 way up the tube, sub-equal, the anthers narrowly ovoid or oblong, pointed apically, 2-locular, situated in the top 1/2 of the corolla tube; ovary glabrous, 2-locular, narrowly conical, the style straight, glabrous, the stigma elongate, slightly expanded, sometimes com-pressed. Capsule included in the indurated, slightly accrescent calyx, mostly exceeding the calyx tube but not the lobes, the valves elliptical; seeds ca. 1 mm long, yellowish, oblong, longitudinally ridged.
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