Plants annual, 30-50 cm tall, glabrous. Stem erect, green or purple-tinged, long naked in lower part, nodes swollen with few adventitious roots, sparsely glandular hairy in upper part, simple or sometimes shortly branched from lower part. Leaves alternate, crowded at upper part of stem, shortly petiolate or subsessile; petiole 5-15 mm, with 2 stipitate glands at base; leaf blade pale green or becoming purple when dry abaxially, green adaxially, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, or ovate-oblong, 5-12 × 1.5-2.5 cm, rigidly papery, setose between teeth, lateral veins 6-8 pairs, base attenuate into petiole, margin crenate-serrate or serrulate, teeth mucronulate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences in upper leaf axils, 6-10-flowered; peduncles erect, over subtending leaves, 7-12 cm, stout. Pedicels 1-1.5 cm, slightly elongate at fruiting, bracteate at base; bracts caducous, ovate-oblong, 5-6 × 2-3 mm, membranous, apex acuminate. Flowers pink-purple, large, 3.5-4 cm deep. Lateral sepals 2, obliquely ovate or ovate, 8-10 mm, apex rounded, cuspidate. Lower sepal incurved, shortly saccate, 3-3.5 cm deep, narrowed into an incurved spur ca. 2 cm; mouth vertical or oblique, 1-1.2 cm wide, tip rostellate. Upper petal orbicular or oblate, 1-1.5 cm in diam., apex mucronulate, abaxial midvein not thickened; lateral united petals not clawed, 2-2.5 cm; basal lobes orbicular; distal lobes ca. 2 × as long as basal lobes, below middle enlarged, downward becoming narrow; auricle small. Filaments linear, 2-3 mm; anthers obtuse. Ovary erect, fusiform, ca. 3 mm. Capsule linear, 1.5-2 cm. Seeds few, brown, oblong, 2-3 mm, tuberculate. Fl. Aug-Sep, fr. Oct.
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A herb. It grows each year from seed. It grows 30-50 cm tall. The nodes are swollen and have a few roots from them. The leaves are alternate and those in the upper part of the stem are crowded. They are pale green underneath. The leaves are narrowly oval and 5-12 cm long by 2-3 cm wide.
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