Widely branched herb, 15-80 cm; tap-root stout, white. Stems angular, with sparse, appressed, pale, stiff hairs with a bulbous base. Leaflets firmly herbaceous, 6-7 below to apically only 3 or 1, obovate, mostly densely appressed-hairy, central leaflet largest, up to 4(-6) by 1.25(-1.75) cm; base cuneate, top rounded and subacuminate to acute; nerves 4-5 pairs; petioles upwards gradually decreasing in length from c. 8-10 cm to almost zero, hairy as the stem, apex and petiolules white. Raceme corymbiform, flowers subtended by reduced leaves, actinomorphic. Pedicels (1-)1.5-3 cm, hairy as the stem. Buds ellipsoid, ± obovate, acute, 6-10 mm long. Sepals narrowly imbricate, appressed, elliptic (to obovate), acuminate, 2-4 mm long, sparsely scaly-hairy outside, margin membranous. Petals 4(-8), mostly obovate with narrowed base and rounded top, 7-12(-15, in India-21) by 3-5 mm, glabrous, light red-purple. Stamens 30-40(-55), somewhat shorter than the petals, glabrous; filaments with a thickened top; anthers c. 1 mm, yellow. Ovary linear, about as long as the stamens, glabrous. Fruit linear, parallel-nerved, narrowed at the very base, glabrous, c. 1-3 mm beaked. Seeds asymmetrical nearly 2 mm, cleft open, dull blackish, not ribbed but warty by scattered scales mainly on the dorsal side. Elaiosome wanting.
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A herb. It grows 20-40 cm tall. It grows each year from seed. The flowers are blue to violet.
Fallow sawahs, sugarcane-fields on heavy clays, and marls periodically drying out during the pronounced dry season, in Java below 100 m, locally sometimes so abundant that the fields are coloured red-purple by the flowers (BACKER, 1931). Fl.fr. Jan.-Dec.KOOPER defined a weed community characterized by Polanisia chelidonii on constantly moist, fairly to very heavy clay in sugarcane-fields ( KOOPER Rec. Trav. Bot. Neerl. 24 1927 84 seq. ).MIRASHI found it characteristic in the vegetation of freshwater swamps in India; he discussed also some anatomical details ( MIRASHI Proc. Ind. Ac. Sc. 43B 1956 233-236 ).
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Fallow rice fields, sugar cane fields on heavy clay, and freshwater swamps; at elevations below 100 metres in Java.
Can be grown by seedlings. Seeds needs stratification.
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