Perennials 15-40(-60) cm tall. Rhizomes blackish, short, with few slightly fleshy rootlets. Stems erect, striate, simple, base sheathed by blackish remains of old petioles. Leaves alternate. Basal and lower stem leaves with petiole slender and 6-11 cm; leaf blade oblong, 4-9 × 2-4 cm, base narrowed, apex obtuse, veins 1-3. Middle to upper stem leaves sessile, narrowly elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, 2-4.5 cm × 6-10 mm, base rounded and subamplexicaul, apex obtuse, veins 1-3. Inflorescences slender, many-flowered thyrses 8.5-21 cm. Flowers 5merous. Pedicel 1.2-3 cm, elongated in fruit. Calyx lobes linear-lanceolate, 8-10 mm, apex acuminate, veins 3. Corolla blue, 1.2-1.6 cm in diam., tube 1.5-2 mm; lobes narrowly elliptic to elliptic, 1.1-1.6 cm, apex obtuse. Nectaries 2 per corolla lobe, cupular, with 2-3 mm pilose fimbriae. Filaments 7-7.5 mm, base fimbriate-barbate; anthers blue, narrowly ellipsoid, 2-2.5 mm. Style indistinct; stigma lobes suborbicular. Capsules ovoid-ellipsoid, 1.3-1.5 cm, as long as persistent corolla. Seeds light brown, broadly ellipsoid to subglobose, 2-2.5 mm in diam., discoid winged. Fl. and fr. Aug-Sep.

Beside streams, forests; 2100-2500 m. Xinjiang (Altay region) [Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia].