Short erect, few branched, glabrous shrub to 20 cm high, sometimes ‘leaning’ on surrounding vegetation but not scandent, rhizomatous, short shoots present; older stems warty with lenticels, grey. Intermediate stage (non flowering) leaves to 19 mm long, canaliculate but usually rapidly caducous. Adult leaves present only towards the apices of branchlets, sessile, club-shaped, canaliculate, clustering/whorled/funneled and tightly stem clasping, short (as specific name suggests), 4–6 mm long, thick, apex with a tiny mucro. Inflorescences few-flowered corymbs or triads barely exceeding the foliage, terminal or terminal on short shoots on upper branchlets; rachis 7–8.5 mm long, warty; peduncles 4–7 mm long; pedicels 4–7 mm long; basal bracts to 2.5 mm long, warty, sepaline, insignificant. Sepals unequal, 2–3 mm long, glabrous, incurving, inner surface hairy, outer surface warty. Petals to 10 mm long and 2.5 mm wide, free, narrow-elliptical, almost oblong, apices rounded, incurving, just cuspidate; outer surface white with deep blue margins and venation, inner surface deep vivid blue. Stamens with apically cohering gold anthers with reflexed apices, grouped together facing petal break, dehiscence is through slits acting as apical pores; filaments shorter than anthers, 3–4 mm long, thin, flat, twisting deep inky blue; anthers gold, sagittate, 4 mm long with a shallow basal sinus; pollen yellow. Pistil slightly stipitate, glabrous, purple green, style longer and curving, with little stigmatic development. Fruit chartaceous, eventually brown and septicidally dehiscent. Seeds numerous and not arillate.
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