Annuals 2-8 cm tall. Stems erect, lower half simple and leafless, upper half much branched with short internodes, and apically with many leaves and flowering branches crowded into a capitulum, angled, sparsely puberulent on angles. Leaves overlapping, crowded, recurved, folded; leaf blade subleathery, rigid, abaxially densely pubescent, adaxially glabrous. Lower leaves with petiole tube 0.5-1 mm; leaf blades narrowly elliptic to ovate-lanceolate, 1.5-2.2 cm × 4-7 mm, base narrowed, margin cartilaginous and ciliolate, apex acuminate to acute and apiculate, veins distinct; upper leaves with petiole tube 1-1.5 mm, membranous, papillose; leaf blades spatulate, 5-7 × 2-3 mm, base obtuse, margin cartilaginous to broadly membranous and ciliolate, apex obtuse and cuspidate, midvein distinct. Flowers many, subsessile. Calyx campanulate, 8-9 mm, tube membranous; lobes triangular, 4-4.5 mm, as long as tube, outside pubescent, margin broadly membranous and ciliolate, apex acute and cuspidate, midvein prominent. Corolla blue-purple, tubular, 1.2-1.4 cm; lobes ovate-triangular, 2.5-3 mm, margin entire, apex acuminate to acute; plicae ovate, 0.8-1 mm, margin entire, apex obtuse. Stamens inserted at basal part of corolla tube, unequal; filaments 3.5-6 mm; anthers narrowly ellipsoid, 1.3-1.5 mm. Style 2.5-3 mm; stigma lobes linear. Capsules narrowly obovoid, 4-5 mm; gynophore 1.5-2 mm, stout. Seeds brown, ellipsoid, 1-1.2 mm. Fl. and fr. Mar-May.
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