Robust annual herb, erect with ascending branches, up to 65 cm high; indumentum of curved hairs throughout, very rarely with short straight appressed to spreading hairs or glabrescent. Leaves ± caducous (plant often leafless or with only a few leaves), linear, 5–35 mm long, 1.0–2.5 mm wide; apex acuminate or acute, mucroc. 0.3 mm long; petiole 0–0.5 mm long. Inflorescence axillary or supra-axillary, a solitary flower or a short few-flowered raceme to 5 (–10) mm long, not exceeding the leaves. Pedicel to 3 mm long. Alae antrorse in fruit (position), herbaceous, oblanceolate, 3.6–6.2 mm long, 1.2–2.0 mm wide, often with margins ciliate, outer surface with appressed hairs. Corolla purple; floral appendages fimbriate; upper petal claw 1 mm wide. Stamens terminate at stigma, monadelphous; staminal flap c. 0.75 mm wide. Style hooked (horseshoe-shaped at apex), ± terete, with flat stigma along inner surface of hook. Capsule antrorse, ± aligned with alae, lacking wing, ± symmetrical, oblong (locule apex acute, rarely obtuse), 4.0–6.5 mm long, 2.3–3.5 mm wide; lobe apices acute or less often rounded and separated. Seed obloid, 3.0–4.5 mm long, 1.0–1.8 mm wide, with indumentum of fine white or ferruginous hairs. Aril head helmet-shaped, 0.8–1.0 mm long, white, brown where reduced to seed testa, with short hairs, often concentrated along groove. Aril appendages absent or 3 much reduced triangular projections, 0.25–0.9 mm long.
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