lants 8-30 cm. tall; stem white, robust, usually simple, bearing a terminal, bifid, 3-to 17-flowered cincinnus, sometimes single-flowered; leaves scale-like, 1-3 mm. long, ovate or lanceolate, obtuse; bracts minute; pedicels white or vinous-purple, 2-6 mm. long; flowers 8-12 mm. long; perianth white or blue, tubular part 2.0-3.5 mm. long, limb 4-5 mm. long, outer lobes ovate, obtuse, with lanceolate lateral lobes as long as or sometimes longer than the middle lobe, inner lobes clavate, sometimes rather large and equalling the middle of the outer lobes, often thick and glandular-swollen; anthers inserted in the throat of the perianth, the connective split at the top into 2 lobes bearing the thecae; style thick-filiform, branched at the top into three branches, each bearing a stigma with 2 long, thick-filiform appendages at the top; ovary 2.0-3.5 mm. long, obovoid, bluish gray, crowned by the cylindrical persistent part of the perianth tube, about 2-4 mm. long; seeds ovoid, funicles very short.
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