Plants annual, 40-50 cm tall, glabrous. Stem erect, green or purple-tinged, many branched; branches spreading or ascending, rigid, slender. Leaves alternate; petiole short, 5-10 mm, often with 1 pair of basal glands; leaf blade ovate or elliptic-ovate, 2-4 × 1-2.5 cm, rigidly papery, lateral veins 5-7 pairs, prominent, base broadly cuneate, margin sharply serrulate, teeth scarcely mucronulate, apex acute or shortly acuminate. Flowers solitary in leaf axils, rarely 2. Peduncles absent. Pedicels shorter than leaves, 1-1.5 cm, slightly elongate at fruiting, bracteate at base; bracts persistent, lanceolate or setose, 4-5 mm, membranous. Flowers blue-purple, 3.5-4 cm deep. Lateral sepals 4; outer 2: subovate, swollen at middle, base rounded, apex curved, long mucronulate; inner 2: lanceolate, ca. as long as or slightly shorter than outer ones, 3-veined, apex acuminate. Lower sepal slightly curved, saccate, 2.5-3 cm deep, gradually narrowed into a hooked, incurved spur; spur ca. 1 cm, stout; mouth tip acute, 1-1.5 cm wide. Upper petal orbicular, ca. 1.2 cm in diam., apex cuspidate, midvein not thickened; lateral united petals not clawed, 2-2.5 cm, 2-lobed; basal lobes broadly oblong, apex retuse; distal lobes oblong-dolabriform, ca. 2 × as large as basal ones, apex rounded; auricle large. Filaments linear, short; anthers obtuse. Ovary fusiform. Capsule linear-cylindric, 2-5 cm. Seeds few, brown, globose, ca. 2.5 mm in diam., smooth. Fl. Aug-Sep, fr. Oct.
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