Herbs, perennial, erect, or subshrubs, forming loose cushions from a massive woody rootstock; stems to 0.3 m, quadrangular, glabrous or mostly with ± dense hirtellous indumentum, on angles shortly aculeolate and hispidulous with partly hooked trichomes, lower nodes usually shortly sheathed with membranous bases of old leaves. Leaves opposite and with interpetiolar and ± leaflike stipules in whorls of 4(-6), sessile or subsessile; blade drying leathery, broadly to narrowly ovate, elliptic, elliptic-oblong, or lanceolate, 1-3 × 0.3-1.5 cm, both surfaces hirtellous to ± glabrous, base acute to obtuse, margins retrorsely aculeolate, toward acute and often cuspidate apex usually antrorsely aculeolate; principal vein 1, sometimes with 2 weak lateral veins. Inflorescences leafy and bracteose, with axillary and terminal, 1-to few-flowered cymes; axes mostly glabrous; pedicels (2-)4-6(-14) mm. Ovary 0.8-1.2 mm, sometimes hirtellous. Corolla yellow, rotate, 5-8 mm in diam., outside sometimes scaberulous; fused base ca. 0.5 mm; lobes lanceolate or lanceolate-ovate, 2-2.5 mm, acuminate. Mericarp berry 3-4 mm in diam. Fl. Jun, fr. Aug.
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