a perennial herb, with a creeping rhizome; stem erect, simple or branched, acutely 4-angled, furrowed, hispid, about 1 ft. high; internodes 1 1/2–2 in. long; leaves opposite, sessile, semi-amplexicaul, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, acute, rounded or subauriculate at the base, stiff, scabrid, hispid on the nerves beneath, with margins entire or coarsely and acutely dentate-serrate, with 4–7 curved ascending primary lateral nerves on each side impressed above, prominent beneath, excurrent in the teeth, 1 1/2–3 1/2 in. long, 1/2– 3/4 in. broad; spike terminal, simple or dichotomously branched, cylindric, dense, bearing many bracteate lilac or blue flowers, 1/2–2 in. long; bracts lanceolate, long-acuminate, with a strongly marked midrib, glabrous above, hirsute beneath and on the margins, 2–5 lin. long, 1/4–1 1/4 lin. broad; calyx of the flower cylindric, dilated below in fruit, coloured, obliquely and acutely toothed, pubescent without, hirsute on the ribs, minutely pubescent within, 2–2 1/2 lin. long; corolla-tube cylindric, pubescent without in the upper part and within, 4 1/2–6 lin. long; stamens inserted below the middle of the corolla-tube; ovary and style about 2 lin. long, glabrous; fruit enclosed in the dilated calyx; coccus shortly oblong, striate, about 1 lin. long. null
