Subshrubs 10-20 cm tall. Stems and branchlets terete, pubescent, with rounded, raised, yellow-brown leaf scars below middle. Leaves crowded on upper part of branches; petiole 5-7 mm, pubescent, narrowly winged; leaf blade abaxially reddish or dark purple, adaxially green, ovate-lanceolate to obovate or elliptic-lanceolate, 3.5-8 × 1.5-2.2(-2.5) cm, papery, abaxially glabrous, adaxially sparsely to densely white setose, midvein slightly raised on both surfaces, lateral veins 4 or 5 pairs, curved, anastomosing along margin, veinlets reticulate, indistinct, base rounded, oblique, both sides differing in size, apex acute, mucronate. Racemes terminal or axillary at several leaves at apices of branches, 3-6 cm, pubescent, densely flowered. Pedicel 2-3 mm; basal bract 1, caducous, ovate-lanceolate, ca. 5 mm, setose, ciliate. Sepals 5, caducous, glabrous; outer sepals 3, ovate, ca. 1.5 × 1 mm, apex obtuse; inner sepals 2, petaloid, elliptic, ca. 5 × 2 mm, 3-veined, apex obtuse. Petals 3, connate in lower 3/4, pink to purple-red, membranous; lateral petals narrowly elliptic, ca. 8 mm, apex rounded; keel shorter than lateral petals, 2-lamellate, apex with 3-lobed appendages. Stamens 8; filaments ca. 5 mm, lower 4/5 united, forming an open staminal sheath; anthers ovoid. Ovary obovoid, narrowly winged, ca. 1 mm in diam., glabrous; style ca. 4 mm, apex slightly thickened, slightly lobed. Capsule suborbicular, ca. 4 mm in diam., winged, apex incised and mucronate. Seeds black, ovoid, ca. 2 mm, ca. 1.2 mm in diam., tuberculate, white pilose; strophiole wing-shaped, yellow-brown, equaling or longer than seeds. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. Apr-May.
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