Erect or ascending, sparsely branched, slender herb, up to 1.5 m. Stem and branches rusty pubescent when young, often with purple dots. Leaves varying from oblong to broadly ovate, mostly ovate, 6—12(—18) by 3—8(—13) cm, acute or acuminate, base rounded or shortly cuneate, sub-entire, margin elsewhere irregularly crenate, glabrous above, pubescent on the nerves below; petiole 3-10 cm, very slender, puberulous. Flowers 5-8 (rarely up to 15) in short, stalked cymes disposed in terminal and axillary thyrses; these 5-15 by 4-5.5 cm, often branched at the base; rachis rusty-sericeous. Bracts subulate, 2-3 mm, caducous. Calyx subcampanulate, sericeous and gland-dotted, 3-5 mm long, in fruit 7-8 mm, unequally 5-toothed; upper tooth ovate, subacute, often strongly reflexed in fruiting stage, many-nerved, lateral teeth deltoid, acute at apex, lower teeth lanceolate-subulate, connate, longer than the rest, accrescent in fruit. Corolla purplish blue or white with purple lower lip, 1.5-2 cm long, puberulous, tube very slender below, slightly gibbous at the base, abruptly decurved above; limb 2-lipped; upper lip short and erect, lower lip concave; filaments partly exserted. Nutlets broadly ovoid, 1 mm long.
Fago-Lauraceous rainforests, in Borneo also in Dipterocarp forest; also in mossy elfin forest, (450-)1000-2400 m. In E. Java sometimes found at 600 and 800 m, and in E. Kutei (Borneo) found along streamsides at 450-700 m; also in Bali at 450 m, but these low localities are exceptional. Fl. Jan.-Dec. Leaf-galls caused by mites. The species prefers wet forest and damp soils; it does not occur in Casuarina forest and in E. Java only in the ever-wet enclaves.
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