Erect shrubby herb or shrub to 2 m tall; plant drying black; young stems pale yellow to orange, smooth and shiny, glabrous to puberulous. Leaves ovate, largest 2.5-16 x 1-7 cm, abrupdy narrowed or not below middle, base attenuate and decurrent to cuneate, apex acuminate to obtuse, glabrous to sparsely pubescent, densest along veins; petiole up to 2(-4) cm long. Cymes to 12 cm long, but often much less and sometimes reduced to apparently solitary flowers in upper leaf axils, unbranched or branched, often also with additional cymes from upper leaf axils; flowers solitary or in 3-7-flowered cymules, sometimes with 2 cymules per bract at lower nodes; axis glabrous to sparsely puberulous; lower pair(s) of bracts usually foliaceous (in reduced cymes then looking as if flowers all solitary and axillary), the rest lanceolate to narrowly triangular, 1-3 mm long, glabrous or sparsely puberulous-ciliate; pedicels 1-3(-4) mm long, glabrous; bracteoles as bracts, often with a narrow scarious margin, 1-2 mm long. Calyx 3-5 mm long, on the outside sparsely ciliate, otherwise glabrous, inside puberulous with thick hairs. Corolla orange-red to scarlet (rarely yellow), with darker centre, outside sparsely puberulous (rarely subglabrous) with a mixture of hairs and capitate glands, sometimes almost entirely glands; tube straight, basal linear part 2.2-3.2 cm long; throat 3-4 mm long, lobes elliptic-obovate, 9-16 x 4-8 mm in lower lip, rounded. Stamens exserted; filaments 2-3 mm long; anthers dark purple, 1-1.5 mm long, rounded to apiculate, glabrous on connective. Capsule 1.9-2.7 cm long; seed 4-6 x 3-5 mm, deeply reticulate on the inner side, smooth to slightly reticulate on the outer side, rim smooth.
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