Erect herb or shrub 90-200 cm tall; stems woody, stiffly-branching, tinged purplish red, shortly spreading-pubescent, glabrescent.. Leaves with unpleasant smell, narrowly ovate, 4-9.5 cm long, 0.8-2.7 cm wide, base cuneate, margins serrate, apex acute, shortly spreading-pubescent, glabrescent.. Capitula in rather congested terminal corymbiform cymes; stalks of individual capitula 0.5-8 mm long, densely sericeous-pubescent to more or less spreading-pubescent, often with conspicuous ridges; involucre 3.5-4.5 mm long; phyllaries 3-seriate, oblong, 3-5 mm long, rounded, green or purplish and often glandular in the centre in upper part, membranous at the margins, long-ciliate.. Florets 30-45 per capitulum; corolla lilac, blue-mauve, purple or violet, 3.5-5 mm long, tube glandular, slightly pubescent, limb infundibuliform, lobes 1.4-2 mm long.. Achenes turbinately prismatic, 1.5-1.8 mm long, truncate, 3-6-ribbed, with a shallow undulate apical rim or cup.
It is a tropical plant. It grows between 1,500-2,500 m above sea level in Kenya. It grows in swampy sites and along streams.
Home
