Branched annual herb 12–60 cm. tall, with a ± simple root; stem obscurely 4-ribbed, covered with ± spreading white hairs.. Leaf-blades narrowly elliptic-lanceolate to narrowly ovate-lanceolate, 1.4–5.6 cm. long, 2.5–8.5 mm. wide, acute at the apex, often widened and rounded at the base, the petioles forming a sheath with the stipules, with scattered longer hairs on both surfaces and also with short stiff ones along the margins, sometimes saw-edged; stipules chestnut-brown; base 2–3 mm. long, hairy, bearing 8–10 filiform setae 6–9 mm. long.. Flowers in axillary verticillate clusters scattered along the length of the stems and crowded towards the apex.. Calyx-tube conic or ellipsoid, 1.8 mm. long, hairy; lobes 2, lanceolate, 2–3.5 mm. long, 0.6–0.8 mm. wide, with stiff hairs along the margins.. Corolla white; tube very narrowly cylindrical, (0.5–)1–1.2 cm. long, glabrous; lobes elliptic-lanceolate to oblong-elliptic, 2–2.2 mm. long, 0.5–1 mm. wide, with spreading white hairs outside.. Filaments exserted 1.5 mm.. Style 1.2 cm. long, exserted about 2 mm.; stigma capitate, 0.4 mm. wide, hairy.. Capsule ellipsoid, 2.2–3 mm. long, finely transversely wrinkled, hairy, each half bearing a persistent calyx-lobe.. Seeds brown, ellipsoid-oblong, 1.8–2.3 mm. long, 1.1 mm. wide, 0.7–0.8 mm. thick, shiny, convex dorsally, with a narrow median groove packed with rhapides ventrally, the surface reticulation very obscure even at high power magnification.. Fig. 49/3, p. 340.
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