Plants annual, (30-)60-100 cm tall, glabrous, with few supporting roots. Stem erect, green or sometimes purple-tinged, robust, branched. Leaves alternate; petiole 2-5 cm, upper leaves subsessile; leaf blade pale green or sometimes purple abaxially, green adaxially, ovate-oblong, ovate, or ovate-lanceolate, 6-15 × 3-4.5 cm, submembranous, glabrous, lateral veins 7 or 8(or 9) pairs, base cuneate, narrowed, or cordate, margin coarsely crenate-serrate, teeth retuse, mucronulate, apex acuminate or caudate-acuminate. Inflorescences terminal at apices of branches, 1-or 2(or 3)-flowered; peduncles 0.5-2 cm, slender. Pedicels short, 0.5-1 cm, bracteate above middle; bracts persistent, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 3-4 × ca. 2 mm, apex acuminate. Flowers usually bicolored, large, 3-4 cm deep. Lateral sepals 2, brown to purple-red when dry, purple spotted, orbicular, 1.3-1.5 cm wide, shiny, many veined, abaxial midvein not thickened. Lower sepal deeply saccate, 2.5-3 cm deep, abruptly narrowed into an incurved spur; spur stout, short, 2-lobed; mouth subvertical or slightly ascending, tip acute. Upper petal purple or yellow, orbicular, ca. 1.5 cm, apex retuse, mucronulate, abaxial midvein thickened, broadly cristate; lateral united petals not clawed, 2.5-3 cm, 2-lobed; basal lobes orbicular, apex with a filamentous long hair; distal lobes dolabriform, longer, with a long filamentous hair; auricle inflexed, narrow. Filaments short, broad; anthers obtuse. Ovary erect, fusiform. Capsule linear, 2.5-4 cm. Seeds many, oblong, 2-3 mm. Fl. Aug-Sep, fr. Oct.
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