Subshrubs or herbs, to 1.2 m tall, perennial, anisophyllous. Stems ascending, apically pubescent. Petiole 0.5-2 cm, hirsute; leaf blade of smaller pair ovate to suborbicular and ca. 3 × 1.6 cm and of larger pair ovate and 12.5-16.5 × 6-8 cm, both surfaces hirsute, adaxially with numerous prominent linear cystoliths, secondary veins 7-9 on each side of midvein, base oblique and decurrent onto petiole, margin irregularly crenate-dentate, apex acute to caudate. Inflorescences axillary, heads, narrowly ovoid, 1-2.5 × 1-1.5 cm, borne on simple or 3-furcate branches; peduncle 1-3 cm, simple or branched and sometimes with a sterile bract at branching point, hirsute; sterile bracts resembling small leaves; floral bracts lanceolate, 1.2-2.3 × 0.7-1 cm, overtopping capitula, abaxially brownish pubescent with gland-tipped trichomes, margin entire and ciliate, apex acuminate and falcate; bracteoles oblanceolate, 7-13 × ca. 2 mm, abaxially pilose, margin ciliate. Calyx outside hirsute, 5-lobed almost to base; lobes oblanceolate, 7-15 × ca. 0.2 mm, subequal, margin ciliate, apex acute. Corolla purplish blue, 3.5-5 cm, ventricose, outside gland-tipped pilose, inside glabrous; tube basally cylindric and ca. 2.5 mm wide for ca. 1 cm then gradually widened to ca. 1.5 cm at mouth; lobes ca. 5 × 4 mm, apex rounded. Stamens 4, included; filaments glabrous, shorter pair 1-2 mm and nodding, longer pair 4-6 mm; anther thecae spherical, ca. 1.2 mm in diam., incurved; pollen type 3. Ovary comose; style ca. 3.7 cm; stigma unequally 2-lobed. Capsule fusiform, 1.5-1.8 × ca. 0.4 cm, apically with a few gland-tipped trichomes, 4-seeded. Seeds brown, ovate in outline, ca. 3 × 2.5 mm, appressed pilose. Fl. Sep-Dec, fr. Jan.
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