Stems 25-50 cm tall, with lines of crispate pubescence. Leaves crowded and irregularly inserted on lower, non-flowering part of stem, verticillate and widely spaced in the inflorescence; internode below inflorescence 1-4 cm long; leaves at flowering nodes mostly small and inconspicuous. Leaf-lamina 15-40 x 0.5-2 mm, subsessile, glabrous or sparsely pilose. Flowers 3-5 in a terminal umbel and sometimes also in fascicles at 1 or 2 nodes below; pedicels up to 13 mm long. Calyx segments 4-6 x 1.5-2 mm, dorsally pilose, ventrally pubescent in upper half. Corolla lobes 6-9 x 4 mm, convex and reflexed at anthesis, dull green streaked dull purple; dorsal surface glabrous. Corona of complex form, 6-7 mm high; each lobe erect, quadrate below and cruciform above, bearing on its ventral surface a triangular fin flanked by two slender curled appendages; these lobes alternating with a small cucullate lobe that rests over the lower end of the anther fissure; corona lobes with yellow-green shoulders, dark maroon or brown cross and brownish purple inner appendages. Anther appendages white, papery, conspicuous, c. 2 mm long; corpusculum 0.45-0.5 mm long, sagittate because of the pronounced lateral flanges; pollinium 0.68-0.78 mm long. Gynostegium white. Fruit unknown.
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