Description:
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Suffrutex up to 1 m tall with one to several, annual, erect, hollow stems, growing from a woody tuber-shaped rootstock. Leaves opposite, subsessile, spaced along the upper part of the stem and main branches, or numerous and clustered towards the apex of the short lateral branchlets, oblanceolate to oblong-obovate or elliptic, 5–15.5 cm long, sometimes longer, smaller and relatively narrower on the lateral branchlets, long attenuate at the base and decurrent into an apparent winged petiole, sparsely puberulous or hairless; margins crenulate to crenate-serrate in the apical part,or entire. Inflorescences raceme-like or spike-like with dense whorls of 1-6 flowers, 7–26 cm long, mostly terminal on the stem and lateral branchlets, sometimes with two smaller axillary inflorescences in the axils of the uppermost leaves. Calyx 5–7 mm long at anthesis; lobes oblong or semicircular, c. c mm long, not overlapping at the margins. Corolla purple and green, violet or blueish; tube c. 8 mm long and c. 3 mm in diameter, exceeding the calyx; corolla very densely to entirely covered with small orange-brown glands. Stamens erect and arcuate, exserted 12–13 mm. Fruit c. 12 mm long, green, turning black when mature; calyx persistent. |