Erect annual herb, 0.5–1.1 m. tall, simple to considerably branched with long ascending branches. Stem and branches terete to bluntly quadrangular, striate, moderately to densely furnished with pale to yellowish multicellular hairs. Leaves lanceolate or narrowly elliptic, those of the main stem 1.4–9 × 0.4–1.5 (2.5) cm., attenuate below or in broader-leaved forms with a petiole up to 1.2 cm. long, obtuse to subacute, the midrib and primary venation of the inferior surface together with the margins more or less furnished (usually more or less densely) with divergent scabrid hairs, surfaces with softer multicellular hairs; superior and branch leaves rapidly smaller and narrower, small-leaved axillary shoots commonly present. Inflorescences terminal on the stem and branches, spicate, c. (1.5) 4–30 × 1–1.25 cm., bright rose-pink, the axis densely furnished with multicellular hairs. Bracts lanceolate, 3–5 mm. long, hyaline with a whitish central band, very acute with a shortly excurrent midrib, glabrous or ciliate, sometimes erose-denticulate; bracteoles similar but somewhat shorter and broader. Tepals elliptic-oblong, 4.5–6.5 mm. long, glabrous, the outer with a very shortly excurrent midrib and usually 2 progressively shorter pairs of lateral (one or more of which is sometimes branched), hyaline-bordered; inner tepals similar but slightly narrower and often only 3-nerved. Stamens fused into a tube for c. three quarters or more of their length, c. 1 mm. shorter than the tepals; free apical portions more or less rounded, truncate or slightly emarginate on each side of the antheriferous apex. Ovary c. 6–8-ovulate, conical above; stigmas (2) 3, spreading or recurved and shorter than the slender, 2–4 mm. long, finally more or less exserted style. Capsule c. 5 mm. long, circumcissile with the apex longly and gradually narrowed into the finally exserted style, furnished with more or less colourless unicellular papillose hairs. Seeds c. 1 mm. in diam.
