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A herb. It is an annual plant. It has an unpleasant smell. It grows 2.5 m high. The leaves have 3-7 lobes. The leaves at the top can be simple. The flowers are tube shaped and divided into 5 shallowly lobed petals. They occur singly in the axils of leaves. They are pink. The fruit is a cylinder shaped capsule. It is four sided. It is 4 cm long. It has a pointy tip.
Leaves heteromorphic; the inferior 3–foliate or 3–partite, sometimes with 1–2 additional irregular lateral segments, central lobe longest, 2–10 cm. long, with the leaflets or segments up to 2 cm. broad; superior leaves simple.
Capsules oblong in lateral view, abaxially gibbous at the base, c. 40 x 5–7 mm.; beak 6–8 mm. long, distinctly bent outwards (TAB. 23 fig. F); loculi sometimes with inconspicuous ribs.
Seeds more or less horizontal in the loculi, about 2.5 mm. x 1.7 mm.; wings, especially the two basal ones, inconspicuous; testa faveolate (TAB. 25. fig. F2).
Erect annual herb, 0.25–2 m. high, bushy or simple-stemmed; glabrous except for the mucilage glands.
Extra-floral nectaries (in the Flora Zambesiaca area) usually single.
Corolla 2.5–4 cm. long, more or less funnel-shaped, mauve.
Calyx deciduous.
