Usually a tufted perennial herb 2–25 cm. long or tall, with many prostrate, erect or decumbent stems from a branched woody rootstock, or less often an annual herb with single stem, usually much branched near the base, or rarely erect and unbranched, sometimes forming definite mats; branchlets glabrous to quite densely scabrid-pubescent.. Leaf-blades linear to linear-lanceolate, 0.7–2.2(–4) cm. long, 0.7–3.5(–4) mm. wide, acute and mucronulate at the apex, cuneate at the base, glabrous save for the sparsely papillate margins or with sparse to rather dense papilla-like hairs on the upper surface; petioles not developed; stipule-sheath 1–2 mm. long, papillate, bearing 2(–3) main filiform fimbriae 1–5 mm. long and several intermediate shorter ones.. Flowers heterostylous, in terminal and apparently axillary subcorymbose (2–)3–5-flowered inflorescences; peduncle slender, 0.25–2.8 cm. long; pedicels 1–7(–16) mm. long.. Calyx-tube campanulate, 0.8 mm. long, glabrous; lobes triangular or lanceolate, (0.5–)1.2–2 mm. long, keeled, slightly scabrid-papillose.. Corolla white, pink, lilac, mauve or pale blue, the lobes often with 2 darker mauve marks; tube (1.5–)2–3 mm. long, densely hairy in the throat; lobes ovate-oblong, (1.4–)2–3 mm. long, ± 1.5(–1.9) mm. wide, densely papillate inside.. Style in short-styled flowers ± 1 mm. long, in long-styled flowers (2.6–)3–4 mm. long; stigma-lobes 0.7–2 mm. long.. Capsule subglobose, 1.5–2 mm. tall, 2–2.6 mm. wide, glabrous, the beak 0.3–0.4 mm. tall.. Seeds dark brown, ovoid, angular, 0.4 mm. long, strongly reticulate.. Fig. 41/26, p. 271.
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