Caudexes robust, lignified, branched, covered toward apex with persistent ovate-lanceolate scales; scales 2-6 mm. Stems caespitose, ascending, 5-20 cm, simple, sparsely white villous or glabrous. Leaves alternate, increasing in size toward apex; blade suborbicular, rhombic, or spatulate, 5-10 × 1-6 mm, abaxially densely white hirsute, adaxially sparsely hispidulous, base attenuate into petiole, margin revolute, entire, or sinuous-serrate, apex obtuse or acute; petiole 1-4 mm. Flowers solitary, terminal, subtended by a whorl-like aggregation of 4 or 5 flowers; pedicels 4-10 mm. Calyx yellow-green or purplish, brown hirsute, glabrescent, or glabrous, conspicuously veined; tube cylindrical at anthesis, 7-13 mm, basally subglobose in fruit; lobes triangular, both sides brown hirsute, or sometimes glabrous outside. Corolla yellow, sometimes purple- or red-veined, less frequently purple basally and yellow apically, tubular-campanulate, 2-3 cm, outside glabrous, inside densely villous at throat; lobes oblanceolate, ca. 2/3 as long as tube. Ovary extended up to throat. Capsules exserted above calyx. Seeds oblong, ca. 1.3 mm, smooth. Fl. Jul-Aug.
Alpine meadows, grassy slopes; 2500-5300 m. SE Gansu, S Qinghai, W Sichuan, SE Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, NE India (Assam, Sikkim), Myanmar, E Nepal].
