Slender, ascending herb, 0.25-2 m. Stem 4-angled, sparingly pubescent in young shoots. Leaves chartaceous or membranaceous, lanceolate, ovate or rhombic, 3-9 by 2-4.5 cm, acuminate, base cuneate, decurrent, entire; margin elsewhere coarsely serrate, puberulous or pubescent on the nerves and glandular on both surfaces; petiole l-2(-4.5) cm, puberulent. Verticillasters distantly apart below, arranged in lax terminal racemes 10-15(-20) cm long. Bracts sessile, ovate, 1-2 mm long. Calyx curved campanulate, 2.5-4.5 mm long, in fruit 6.5-12 mm, puberulous on the nerves, outside gland-dotted or warted. Corolla white, pale lilac or lilac, 10-16(-20)mm long; tube slender, 10-12 mm, straight; upper lip shallowly 4-lobed, recurved; lower lip straight, concave. Filaments glabrous, filiform, coiled in bud, projecting c. 2 cm beyond the corolla-throat. Style 5-6 cm, the tip enlarged, club-shaped, very shortly 2-fid; branches clasped. Nutlets broadly oblong, compressed, 1.5 mm long, rugose.
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A slender shrub. It grows 1-2 m tall. The stems are 4 angled. They have some hairs when young. The leaves are sword shaped or oval. The flowering shoots are at the ends of branches. The fruit are nutlets 1.5 mm long.
In thickets and along forest borders in shaded not too dry localities, along roadsides and ditches, and in teak-and bamboo-forests, in rubber estates, among sago palms, on levees, in grassland, in regrowths and old garden land, from sea-level to c. 1000 m. Fl. Jan.-Dec.Flowers are occasionally cleistogamous; the corolla remains then concealed inside the calyx base, stamens are very short and the style is tortuous; yet the ovary and nutlets are normal.Root galls are caused by nematodes.
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Forest margins. Thickets, regrowths, grasslands and along forest borders and roadsides, often in shaded not too dry localities, but also in sunny places, at elevations up to 1,000 metres.
It is a tropical and subtropical plant. It grows in a range of places up to 1,000 m above sea level. In CFFRC farm Malaysia. At MARDI. At FRIM. In Yunnan. In Queen Sirikit BG.
Uses. Often cultivated in gardens for ornamental and medicinal purposes.As VAN DER SLEESEN remarked (l.c. 39-41) it is very strange indeed that this plant, which is showy as an ornamental, was not collected or mentioned by botanists and explorers before 1777 from Malesia when THUNBERG collected it in Java. And its medicinal use was not mentioned before 1885 from Java, and in SE. Asia still later. As it is also not known to occur in genuinely native forest vegetation, it would even seem to be an introduced plant of which the Eurasians and Europeans detected the medicinal value in the latter half of the 19th century. Propagation is easy from cuttings.Its medicinal use is now universal throughout Malesia, leaves being used as a strong diuretic in infusa (tea) against various kinds of kidney complaints and illness, renal calculi, phosphatury catarrh of the bladder, gout, etc. and also, together with Phyllanthus urinaria and Desmodium gangeti-cum against gall stones and podagra.Although the plant has repeatedly been under thorough phytochemical and pharmocological investigation (see references in VAN DER SLEESEN, l.c. 41) a specific constituent responsible for its medicinal value has not been found.
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It is used for flavouring and as a herbal tea.
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