Plant rigid, erect, up to 16 in. high; stems simple, scarcely 3/4 lin. thick, furrowed, shortly grey-villous-tomentose in the furrows, soon becoming glabrous. Leaves crowded, subverticillate, narrowly linear, 7 1/2–10 lin. long, 1/2– 3/4 lin. broad, acute, spreading, at first bearing some very slender whitish hairs, quickly glabrescent. Flowers sessile in very dense broadly oblong terminal spikes up to 2 in. long or more; bracts linear-lanceolate, about 5 lin. long and 1 1/4 lin. broad, densely villous-woolly on the margin. Calyx 3 1/2 lin. long, densely woolly; teeth triangular-deltoid, 1 1/2 lin. long, acute. Corolla pale crimson; tube funnel-shaped, slightly curved, 3 1/2 lin. long, about 1 lin. broad above; lobes ovate, shorter than the tube. Anthers coherent in pairs; perfect cells oblong, 1 1/2 lin. long, Capsule ovoid, 2 1/4 lin. long, 1 1/2 lin. broad, glabrous, compressed above, beaked.
