Annual unbranched to branched herb 3–60 cm. tall; stems 4-ribbed, ± densely covered with spreading white hairs.. Leaf-blades narrowly lanceolate to elliptic-lanceolate, 1.8–7(–9.5) cm. long, 0.25–1.9(–2.1) cm. wide, tapering acute at the apex, cuneate at the base, sparsely to densely ± scabridly hairy or rarely glabrous on both surfaces, the margins always very scabrid with short hairs, the nerves impressed above and surface somewhat bullate; true petiole absent; stipule-sheath 3.5–5 mm. long, densely hairy, with 5–9 setae 0.4–1.1 cm. long.. Flowers in few-many-flowered clusters at the nodes, up to 1.3–1.8 cm. in diameter in fruiting stage.. Calyx-tube obconic, 2.2 mm. long, hairy above; lobes 4, narrowly triangular-lanceolate, 2 shorter narrower ones alternating with 2 longer wider ones 2–4(–7) mm. long, 0.5–1.6 mm. wide, scabrid on the margins.. Corolla white or pink; tube 3–5(–7) mm. long; lobes triangular or ovate-triangular, 1.8–2.5(–5) mm. long, 1.2–1.8 mm. wide, with a few hairs at the apex outside.. Filaments exserted 1–2 mm.. Style exserted 2–4 mm.; stigma capitate.. Capsule ellipsoid, 3–4 mm. long, 2.1–2.5 mm. wide, hairy above or all over.. Seeds chestnut-brown, oblong-ellipsoid, 2.4–2.8 mm. long, 1.3 mm. wide, 0.6 mm. thick, convex dorsally, with a wide ventral excavation which is usually filled with white cellular material for most of its length but basally narrowed and there filled with rhaphides, finely rugulose.. Fig. 51/24, p. 344.
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