Herbs perennial or biennial, 20-40 cm tall. Stems erect, several and cespitose, 1-3 with dense leaf clusters forming rosettes at base. Basal leaves spatulate to spatulate-lanceolate, 2-7 × 0.2-2 cm, gray-white spreading strigose and sericeous, hairs discoid at base, base attenuate, margin ciliate, apex acute to obtuse; stem leaves linear to narrowly oblanceolate. Inflorescences terminal, several to many flowered, becoming racemelike, to 6-15 cm after anthesis; bracts leaflike. Pedicel 1-2 cm, erect, pubescent. Flowers widely spaced. Calyx lobes linear to linear-lanceolate, 2-3 mm, sericeous, spreading hispid outside, short appressed pubescent. Corolla blue, campanulate-rotate; tube 2.5-3 mm; appendages lunate to low trapeziform, surpassing throat, with a papillate emergence below; lobes divaricate, suborbicular, 2.5-3 mm. Anthers narrowly ovate, ca. 1 mm. Gynobase 0.5-0.8 mm. Nutlets turbinate, smooth, shiny, ca. 2 × 1-1.2 mm excluding marginal prickles, abaxially flat or slightly convex, marginal rib irregularly finely prickled; prickles not barbed at apex; attachment scar at base. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.
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