Herbs perennial, with a comparatively stout rhizome from which arise numerous fibrous roots and clothed at base by withered old leaves. Leaves forming a rosette to 15 cm in diam.; leaf blade 5--8 X 1.5--3 cm at anthesis, 7--11 X 2.5--3.5 cm at fruiting, oblong-obovate to oblanceolate, tapering from a rounded apex into a very short or almost obsolete winged petiole, irregularly crenate-dentate at margin, thickly papery, adaxial surface scurfy-glandular at anthesis, glabrous when mature, +/-white farinose abaxially; lateral veins 8--11 pairs, prominent abaxially, angled to midvein ca. 60°, ending in teeth, secondary veins very obscure or invisible. Scapes 4.5--6 cm, 1--4 per plant, glabrous, carrying a terminal umbel of 3--7 flowers; bracts 3--4 mm, acuminate from broad base, brown, paleaceous; pedicels 1.2--1.5 mm, lengthening to 2 cm in fruit, glabrous. Flowers heteromorphic; calyx campanulate, ca. 7 mm, 5-veined, glabrous, split almost to middle; lobes ovate, acuminate; corolla violet-blue. Thrum flower: corolla tube slender, ca. 12 mm, ampliate above insertion of stamens, limb ca. 1.8 cm in diam.; lobes obovate, ca. 7 mm, deeply emarginate; stamens inserted near apex of corolla tube; filaments very short; anthers ca. 1.5 mm; ovary glabrous; style ca. 5 mm. Capsule globose, slightly shorter than the persistent calyx.
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