Perennial herb with 2–3 usually straggling stems 0.6–1 m. long bearing many axillary branchlets, arising from a woody rootstock; stems hairy when young, the hairs mostly in 2 lines, later glabrescent and the epidermis often flaking off. Leaf-blades ovate to lanceolate, 0.5–3.5 cm. long, 0.3–1.2 cm. wide, acute at the apex, rounded or broadly cuneate at the base, often discolorous, glabrescent or with short hairs above and mostly on the venation beneath, usually somewhat revolute; petiole obsolete or 1–4 mm. long; stipules with 3–5 setiform segments 2–4 mm. long from a short base. Flowers in 2–10-flowered terminal heads which may elongate into short spikes after flowering, usually with a few axillary flowers near the tops of the shoots as well. Calyx-tube oblong, 1 mm. long, glabrous or hairy; lobes 5, either 2 foliaceous and 3 small, 1 foliaceous and 4 small, or 3 small and 1 large and 1 medium foliaceous or all small; foliaceous lobes ovate, 4–5 mm. long, 1.5–2.5 mm. wide, acute at the apex, glabrescent or sparsely hairy and usually ciliate round margins; setiform lobes 2–3 mm. long, hairy. Corolla white, lilac or pale pink; buds with limb expanded into an ovate or subcylindrical head, usually rather hairy particularly at the apex; tube filiform, 0.6–1.2 cm. long, sometimes hairy; lobes 5, lanceolate, 3.5–5 mm. long, 0.5–1 mm. wide, usually with scattered hairs externally. Stamens 5, rather shorter than the lobes. Style and stigma exserted for 3.5–5 mm.; stigma bilobed, lobes filiform, 1–2.5 mm. long. Fruit brown, elongate-oblong, 4 mm. long, 2 mm. wide, 1 mm. thick, hairy. Seeds black, elongate-oblong, truncate at both ends or elongate-tapering, 1.5–3 mm. long, 0.5–1 mm. wide, dorsally with a central keel, reticulate, ventrally with an elongate depression surrounding the hilum.
