Annual herb; stems 1-8 dm tall, usually simple, sometimes sparingly branched above, often with fleshy leaf scales (tubercles) at the base; herbage villous to hirsute, usually with viscid and gland-tipped hairs. Leaves 3-6(-10) cm long, 5-15(-22) mm broad, entire, oblanceolate or narrow lanceolate to elliptic or obovate, usually tapering to a petiolar base, the midvein and usually 2 lateral veins prominent, the larger leaves irregularly pinnately veined. Inflorescence a dense, many flowered spike, glandular villous; bracts lanceolate to oblanceolate, tipped with red to orange or occasionally yellow. Flowers small; calyx 9-12 mm long, the median cleft subequal, 3-5 mm deep, the primary lobes entire, truncate or rounded, viscid villous below, densely glandular puberulent on the rigid lobes, distally colored as on the bracts; corolla included in the calyx, usually about 1 mm shorter to as long as the calyx, the galea 2.5-5 mm long, the lower lip much reduced with 3 lanceolate lobes, the tube longer than the galea, 6-8.5 mm long. Fruit a capsule, 5-7 mm long, round, obovoid spherical, often blackish brown; seeds numerous, elongate, truncate at the summit.
Home