Erect herb, 10–50 cm tall. Leaves 10–20 x 1.5–5 cm, lanceolate to oblanceolate or obovate, generally irregularly serrate or doubly serrate, acute, glabrous, the lower surface partially silvery farinose, tapering below into ± winged 4–5(–10) cm long petiole. One or more leaf-bract verticils, sessile, like basal leaves but smaller. Flowers in whorls in axils of leaf-like bracts; pedicels slender, 2–2.5(–4.5) cm long. Calyx campanulate, 5-fid, up to 1.1 cm long, glabrous; lobes lanceolate, acute, usually entire, 6–8 mm long. Corolla-tube slender, up to 3.5 cm long, ± expanded for 5–7 mm below limb; lobes obovate-spatulate, 5–6 mm long. Stamens inserted at throat of corolla; anthers 2–2.5 mm long. Style usually reaching base of anthers. Capsule 4–6(–7) mm long, opening by 5 valves.
Range
N2 (Daloh)
Altitude range
c. 1650 m.
Distribution (external)
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Saudi Arabia
Yemen
Notes
Two subspecies have sometimes been recognised on the basis of differences mainly in the shape and size of the calyx-lobes and in the size of corolla and corolla-lobes: subsp. verticillata in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Somalia, and subsp. simensis (Hochst.) W.W. Smith & Fletcher in Ethiopia and Eritrea. However, the variation seems to be more or less continuous.
