Herbs 50-100 cm tall, perennial, isophyllous, drying blackish. Stems ± 4-angled, sulcate, reddish brown pubescent, apically with distinctive scattered wartlike excrescences. Petiole 1-1.5 cm or leaves sessile; leaf blade ovate-lanceolate to oblong-elliptic, sometimes pandurate, 7-17(-25) × 3.5-8 cm, glabrous or thinly pilose especially on abaxial veins, margin, and adaxial surface, abaxially paler, adaxially with cystoliths, secondary veins 6 or 7 on each side of midvein and somewhat parallel, base cuneate to rounded and auriculate, margin crenate, apex shortly acuminate. Inflorescences axillary or terminal, simple or basally branched spikes, 5-20 cm, often forming a panicle when mature; rachis reddish brown puberulent, apically becoming very slender; bracts lanceolate, 1.5-2 × 0.2-0.4 cm, persistent, glabrous except for ciliolate margin, occasionally developing stipitate glands when mature, 1-veined, apex long acuminate; bracteoles similar to bracts but narrowly linear-lanceolate, ca. 18 × 1 mm. Flowers 1-1.5 cm apart on rachis and apically not very confluent. Calyx 1-2.2 cm, accrescent in fruit, 5-lobed almost to base; lobes linear, 14-20 × ca. 1 mm, equal, occasionally developing stipitate glands when mature, margin ciliolate, apex finely acuminate. Corolla blue, ca. 3 cm, outside glabrous, inside glabrous except for trichomes retaining style; tube basally cylindric and ca. 2.5 mm wide for ca. 7 mm then strongly bent and abruptly widened to 1-1.4 cm at mouth; lobes ovate, ca. 4 × 4 mm, apex emarginate. Stamens 4, included; shorter filament pair 2-3 mm, glabrous; longer filament pair ca. 7 mm, basally pilose; anther thecae oblong, ca. 3 × 1.2 mm; pollen type 3. Ovary glabrous, with 2 ovules per locule; style ca. 2.5 cm, pilose. Capsule 1.2-2.2 cm, glabrous, 4-seeded. Seeds ovate in outline, ca. 3 × 2.5 mm, densely appressed pubescent; areola small. Fl. Sep-Nov, fr. Mar.
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