Herbs annual. Stems much branched above, to 65 cm tall; branches ascending, spreading hispid. Lower stem leaves withered in fruit; leaf blade narrowly spatulate to linear-lanceolate, 4-6 cm × 3-5 mm, strigose, adaxially less so, base attenuate, apex obtuse; upper stem leaves narrower, shorter. Inflorescences terminal on branches, to 20 cm in fruit, becoming widely spaced; with leaflike bracts on lower part of inflorescences, longer than fruit; upper bracts linear, slightly longer than fruit. Calyx lobes spreading or revolute, linear, ca. 4 mm, to 6 mm in fruit, hispid, apex acute. Corolla blue-purple, ca. 4.5 mm; tube ca. 3 mm; throat appendages trapeziform, ca. 0.6 mm; limb ca. 4 mm wide; lobes spreading horizontally, oblong, 1-1.5 mm. Style slightly surpassing nutlets. Fruit broadly ovoid, 4-4.5 in diam., nutlets homomorphic along lower part of inflorescences, wingless, narrowly ovoid, 4-4.5 mm, densely granulose; disc with short glochids on keel along center line, with 2 rows of glochids along margin; inner glochids 1-2.5 mm, bases somewhat widened but free, outer glochids 1-1.2 mm. Nutlets heteromorphic in upper part of inflorescences, 2 with inner glochids on disc margin 1.5-2 mm, bases strongly widened and confluent into a divaricate wing; outer glochids 1-1.8 mm; 2 other nutlets with homomorphic prickles. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep.
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