Herbs or subshrubs, apparently biennial or perennial, erect, 25-60 cm tall; stems sometimes slightly constricted at nodes, 4-angled to 4-winged, wings to 1.5 mm wide. Leaves sessile or subsessile; blade drying stiffly papery to leathery, ovate-lanceolate, lanceolate, elliptic, or lanceolate-elliptic, 2-12 × 0.5-2.5 cm, glabrous, base cuneate to rounded, margins thickened, often inrolled, sometimes glandular-serrulate, apex acute or shortly acuminate; secondary veins indistinct; stipules fused to petiole bases, ovate or triangular, 1.5-5 mm, glabrous, margins often becoming revolute, entire or glandular-serrulate, apex acute to acuminate. Inflorescences terminal, in axils of uppermost leaves, and occasionally also axillary or pseudoaxillary at lower nodes, paniculate or corymbose, 3-20 cm, many flowered, glabrous, pedunculate; peduncle 2-8 cm; axes dichasial, sharply 4-angled to thinly 4-winged; bracts triangular to lanceolate and 0.3-5 mm, or leaflike and larger. Flowers sessile, distylous. Calyx glabrous; hypanthium portion turbinate to ellipsoid, 0.8-1 mm; limb lobed nearly to base; lobes ovate, triangular, or lanceolate, 0.8-1.2 mm. Corolla white to pink, funnelform, outside glabrous; tube 2.2-3.5 mm, inside tomentose above middle; lobes ovate-lanceolate, 2-3 mm. Anthers included or exserted, ca. 1 mm. Stigma included or exserted, 0.5-1 mm. Fruit capsular, obovoid to ellipsoid, 2-2.5 × 1-1.2 mm, glabrous, leathery, apically flat or with beak to 0.3 mm, septicidal and then loculicidal along middle of septum; seeds several, black, suborbicular, angled. Fl. May-Dec, fr. Jun-Dec.
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