shrubby, glabrous or puberulous, with virgate, terete branches; leaves scattered, distant or close, either cuneiform and mucronate, or linear, or lanceolate, obtuse or acute, mostly tapering to the base, the margin slightly reflexed; racemes terminal, elongating, many flowered; pedicels shorter than the flower; bracts subulate, deciduous, alæ broadly elliptical or suborbicular, very obtuse, ant. sepals elliptical, concave; keel amply crested, sub-acute, lat. petals clawed, flabelliform, sub-truncate, flattish or involute; capsule obcordate, winged. A shrub, or small tree, 2–5–15 feet high, with rod-like branches, terminating in racemes of handsome purple or flesh-coloured flowers.