Justicia spartioides T.Anderson

Shrub, shrublet or suffrutex, up to 2 x 2 m. Branches straight or geniculate, glabrous or variously hairy, internodes up to 70 mm long, smooth or finely wrinkled, terete; main stems often with several years' growth of lateral branches clustered in a single axil; young stems with lateral branches developing singly and regularly to produce characteristic rafter-branching, often yellow-green. Leaves subsessile or petiolate, remote, glabrous or hairy, flat or rarely terete, linear to rounded, up to 45 x 14 mm, usually yellow-green; petiole up to 10 mm long but usually shorter. Flowers scattered, solitary, sessile or on pedicels up to 7 mm long. Bracteoles borne near apex of pedicel, sheathing bud or much shorter and often caducous, leaving cup-like rims. Calyx variously hairy with short or long hairs and/or glands, small, tube 1 mm long, lobes triangular, oblong or more or less lanceolate, 2-7 mm long, green or yellow-green, or calyx glabrous, large, tube 2 mm long, lobes ovate with long apices up to 10 mm long, one or two lobes sometimes larger than others, often conspicuously nerved with nerves contrasting in colour to lobes, e.g. blue/cream, brown/white, green/yellow or else nerves transparent and lobes green, yellow, white or cream. Corolla 15-19 mm long, hairy on outside, cream, greenish white, pale mauve, blue or bicoloured. Capsule 10-14 mm long(including stipe of up to 6 mm), 2-or 1-seeded, glabrous. Seeds plump and more or less spherical when only one develops, 3.5 x 3 mm, yellow or beige with dark blotches.