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Leaves paired or sometimes appearing verticillate due to short axillary branchlets, 0.65–6.0 x 0.2–1.5 cm., the lowest ovate, the rest lanceolate, narrowly elliptic, elliptic-oblong or almost oblanceolate, obscurely to distinctly acute at the apex, cuneate at the base, glabrous or at most puberulous on the lateral nerves beneath, often drying yellow-green; petiole up to 2 mm. long, adnate to the stipular sheath; stipules with 3 flat linear or rarely spathulate lobes, 0.2–1.2 cm. long from a base 1.5–4 mm. long.
Corolla tube (0.7)1.05–1.7 cm. long, 0.3–1.2 mm. wide at the base, 1–2.5 mm. wide at the throat for a distance of 2–5 mm. in long-styled flowers, the dilation sometimes constricted at the throat so its orifice is narrow, glabrous to scaly puberulous outside; lobes (3)4–7 x 1–3.5 mm., broadly elliptic, ovate-oblong or oblong, hairy outside; throat densely hairy.
Fruit black, globose, ± fleshy and succulent, 4.5–8 x 3.1-7.5 mm., glabrous, narrowed at the apex, very shallowly lobed, crowned by the persistent calyx lobes; walls thickish and woody, with regularly spaced channels just within the calyx tube layer.
Calyx tube blackish, quadrate, 1–1.2 mm. long and wide, glabrous; lobes unequal, the 1–2 foliaceous ones 0.3–1.2 cm. x 0.9–3 mm., lanceolate, ovate-lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, the rest small, c. 1 mm. long, all glabrous.
Perennial herb with 5–20 erect, spreading or prostrate stems 8–30(40) cm. tall from a woody rootstock c. 3 cm. in diam., or sometimes forming mats 1.2 m. in diam.; stems narrowly bifariously hairy or scaly puberulous.
Ovary and fruit 3–5-locular; style in long-styled flowers exserted 2.5–4 mm.; stigma lobes 2–5, filiform 0.5–1 mm. long.
Inflorescence dense, capitate or spicate, sometimes branched, 1.5–3 cm. long and wide; peduncle 2.5–10.5 cm. long.
Seeds yellow, 2.5 x 1.5 mm., ovoid, laterally much compressed, with a reddish brown pattern.
Flowers blue or rarely white, dimorphic.
