Terrestrial or epiphytic herbs or low shrubs; stems succulent, quadrangular, to 0.5 m tall, stout, red to purple, becoming pale brown, strigillose to glabrous, unbranched. Leaves equal in a pair, fleshy, ovate to suborbicular, large, 8.7-29.5 cm long, 3.9-25.4 cm wide, membranous when dry, the apex acuminate to cuspidate or rounded, the base rounded or cordate, crenulate to subentire, above bullate, glossy dark green, glabrous, the veins sunken, below pink to red or purple, puberulent at least on the veins to glabrous, the veins prominent; petioles often long, stout, sometimes scaly, 2.3-21.7 cm long, 2-6 mm wide, purplish. Inflorescences in the upper axils, flowers many in congested racemes; peduncles ascending, short, red; bracts oblong, red purple, puberulent; pedicels to 4 cm long, red purple, glabrescent. Flowers showy; calyx lobes ovate, shiny, red purple, 1-3 cm long, puberulent, entire or inconspicuously toothed; corolla lilac, pink, cream, light yellow or white with yellow on the limb, the tube horizontal in the calyx, saccate at the base, puberulent, broader toward the throat and not contracted above, waxy, to 6 cm long, the limb bilabiate, the lobes rounded, the lower lobe larger and fimbriate; stamens included, the filaments shortly adnate to the base of the corolla tube, flattened, coiled after anthesis, the anthers oblong, ca. 5 mm long; disc gland broadly triangular, yellow, glabrous; ovary reddish, glabrous, the style yellow, puberulent; style scoop shaped. Fruit a fleshy capsule, oblate or globose, lavender, blue, pink, red to purple, ca. 1 cm in diam.; seeds fusiform, reddish, striate.
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