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Perennial herb up to 65 cm high, with a slender woody taproot; plant (except on corolla) pubescent, indumentum of minute or uniformly short, erect or somewhat retrorse, stiff gland-tipped hairs interspersed with scattered to numerous long white eglandular hairs up to c. 2 mm long, the gland-tipped hairs more frequent on the upper surface of the leaves and on the inflorescence.
Undershrub, 0.3-0.6 m high. Leaves elliptic or obovate-elliptic, long-cuneate at base, sharply acute or subacute (in outline) at apex, dentate in upper half. Cocci separating spontaneously when ripe. Flowers white, cream or yellow.
Spikes terminal, straight, 4.5–20 cm long, many-flowered, with the calyces closely appressed to the axis; bracts 4–8 mm long, lanceolate, usually attenuate and acute, hyaline-whitish, ciliate; bracteoles absent.
Mericarps separating when ripe, 5–6 × 0.7–0.9 mm, subcylindric, flat on the commissural face, the back reticulate in the upper half and striate towards the base, black when mature.
Corolla pale yellow, with a slender tube abruptly expanded into a flat limb; tube c. 2.7 cm long, usually curved; lobes 4–5 × 3.5 mm, broadly elliptic or obovate.
Calyx erect, 7.5–10 × 1.3 mm, puberulous with gland-tipped hairs; teeth 0.3–1 mm, unequal.
Filaments c. 1.4 mm long in the upper pair of stamens, c. 0.9 mm long in the lower pair.
Stems 1–several, erect, simple or branched, leafy.
