Shrubs to 3 m tall, isophyllous, drying green. Stems terete, ca. 9 mm in diam., sulcate, striate, glabrous; bark dull brown, smooth. Petiole 1-2.5 cm, glabrous; leaf blade oblong-elliptic, 6-25 × 2.5-9 cm, both surfaces glabrous and with numerous small cystoliths, abaxially olive-green, adaxially dark green, base long attenuate and decurrent onto petiole, margin serrate, apex tapered, long acuminate, and sometimes falcate. Inflorescences axillary, spikes, 2-14 cm, basally rarely with a reduced second spike, usually some forming a 30-50 cm leafless panicle of spikes; peduncle 1-3 mm; rachis glabrous; bracts broadly oblong-obovate, 5-7 × 3-4 mm, concave, rigid, persistent into fruit, abaxially densely covered with cystoliths and dotted with small sessile brownish glands and often with larger sticky gland-tipped patches along midvein, apex abruptly truncate and with a short deciduous mucro; bracteoles lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 10-13 × 1-2 mm, slightly shorter than calyx, concave, rather rigid, glabrous or (rarely) scurfy along margin, abaxially densely covered with cystoliths and with scattered sessile glands sometimes becoming stipitate in fruit, apex obtuse. Flowers arranged in opposite pairs, both usually fertile, basally to 1 cm apart on rachis, apically confluent. Calyx 1.2-1.5 cm, slightly accrescent in fruit, subequally 5-lobed to just above base; lobes narrowly lanceolate, 10-14 × 1-2 mm, glabrous except for apical glands that sometimes become stipitate, outside non-glandular except for a few sessile glands near apex, densely covered with cystoliths, apex acute to acuminate. Corolla bluish purple, 4-4.5 cm, sometimes apically bent, outside glabrous; tube basally cylindric and ca. 1.5 mm wide for 7-8 mm then ventricose and widened to ca. 1.5 cm at mouth; lobes ovate, ca. 5 × 5 mm. Stamens 4, included; filaments setose, shorter pair ca. 2 mm, longer pair ca. 4 mm; anther thecae narrowly oblong, ca. 3 × 0.5 mm; pollen type 3. Ovary comose; style ca. 2.5 cm, densely villous. Capsule oblong, 17-18 × ca. 3 mm, comose with a few trichomes, 4-seeded. Seeds ovate in outline, flattened, densely pilose; areola small, glabrous. Fl. Jun-Oct, fr. Dec-Mar.
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