Herbs 10--50 cm tall. Petiole wide, margin greenish; leaf blade obovate, oblong-obovate, or broadly lanceolate, usually 2.5--6 X ca. 3 cm including petiole, rigid, base attenuate, apex shortly acuminate to acute. Inflorescences corymbose or paniculate; rachis 2 or 3(or 4) X branched, conspicuously longitudinally 2- or 3-edged or winged and becoming 2- or 3-angular; spikes with 2--9(--11) spikelets; spikelets ± crowded, 2--5-flowered; bracts broadly ovate to elliptic-obovate, 7--8 mm, apex 1-cuspidate; first bractlet similar to bracts but usually apically 2- or 3-cuspidate. Calyx (6--)7--8 mm, tube ca. 1 mm in diam.; lobes entire, veins dark purple, sometimes yellowish, and never reaching middle of limb. Corolla purple. Fl. Jun-Jul, fr. Jul-Aug.

Nei Mongol, Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia]