Plants annual, 30-90 cm tall, glabrous. Stem erect or obliquely ascending, green, striate when dry, succulent, simple or sometimes shortly branched, lower nodes swollen, with many fibrous roots. Leaves alternate; petiole 1.5-3.5 cm, with 2 stipitate basal glands; leaf blade pale green abaxially, green adaxially, ovate-lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, 8-13 × 1.5-2.5 cm, setose between teeth, lateral veins 5-7 pairs, base cuneate, attenuate into petiole, margin coarsely crenate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences in upper leaf axils, subcorymbose, 3-8-flowered; peduncles often conspicuously overtopping leaves. Pedicels 1-1.5 cm, elongate at fruiting, slender, bracteate at base; bracts persistent, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 3-5 mm, thick, apex acuminate. Flowers purple or pink, 1.5-2.5 cm deep. Lateral sepals 2, obliquely ovate, 6-9 × 3-4 mm, inequilateral, conspicuously veined, apex long mucronulate. Lower sepal broadly funnelform, narrowed into an incurved spur 1.5-2 cm; mouth nearly vertical or slightly oblique, 1-1.2 cm, tip acute. Upper petal suborbicular, 1-1.1 cm in diam., base truncate, apex emarginate, mucronulate, abaxial midvein cristate; lateral united petals not clawed, ca. 1 cm, 2-lobed; basal lobes suborbicular; distal lobes dolabriform, broad, apex slightly acute; auricle inflexed, large. Filaments linear; anthers small, apex obtuse. Ovary erect, fusiform, 2-3 mm. Capsule linear, 1.7-2.2 cm. Seeds many, brown, obovoid, ca. 3 mm, tuberculate. Fl. and fr. Aug-Oct.
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