Herbs, perennial, weak to climbing, trailing, or matted. Stems usually much branched, 20-70 cm, 4-angled, retrorsely aculeolate to glabrescent. Middle stem leaves in whorls of 6-8, subsessile; blade drying papery or leathery, often blackening, linear-oblong to broadly (ob)lanceolate, (5-)10-22(-30) × (1-)2-4.5(-5.5) mm, adaxially and particularly abaxially ± rough, base acute to cuneate, margin flat to thinly revolute, densely retrorsely aculeolate, ± gradually narrowed into acute apex; vein 1. Inflorescences with terminal and axillary, several-flowered cymes 2-5 cm; axes ± glabrous, often slightly divaricate, with small bracts on lower branches only; pedicels (0.2-)1-3(-5) mm. Ovary obovoid, 0.2-0.3 mm, glabrous or with undeveloped trichomes. Corolla red to purple or violet (only very rarely white), rotate, 1.5-2.5(-3) mm in diam., glabrous; lobes 4, triangular-ovate, acute. Mericarps ovoid, 1-2 mm, glabrous, smooth to verrucose, or sometimes with appressed or spreading uncinate trichomes. Fl. Jun-Sep, fr. Jul-Oct.
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