Annual from slender taproot, to 600 mm high. Stem branching from base and above, sparsely scabrid-papillose. Leaves alternate, ± narrowly elliptic, 30-90 x 3-9 mm, margins shallowly toothed to lightly dentate, sparsely ciliate at base, upper leaves becoming scale-like. Inflorescence lax, pedicels 30-70 mm long, smooth. Flowers blue-mauve with conspicuous grey cup edged with white. Hypanthium obconic, ± 2 mm long, 10-nerved. Calyx lobes narrowly triangular, 3-4 mm long, ascending, tips slightly recurved, enlarging to 5 mm in fruit. Corolla up to 24 mm long (much shorter late in season), lobes united below for 2.5-3.0 mm in shallow, basin-like cup, cup densely puberulous. Stamens 5, filaments ± 1.5 mm long at dehiscence, bases deltoid, ± 1 mm long, orange with black flecks, ciliate on margins, filiform distally for 0.5 mm, bases enlarging after dehiscence and to 2 mm long at anthesis and then conspicuously lobed at base with upper part of filament recurved and thickened; anthers linear, 2 mm long, Ovary inferior, 3-locular; style ± slender throughout, ± 4 mm long, hirsute in upper half, with 3 transverse glands alternating with stigma lobes; stigma lobes ± ovate, ± 1.7 x 1.2 mm, obtuse, spreading horizontally, upper surface papillate. Capsules obconic, 7-9 mm long, ± 6 wide at apex, domed in center, glabrous, seeds ellipsoid, smooth, 0.6-0.8 mm long.
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