Herbs annual. Stems erect, usually branched below, 15-30 cm tall, spreading or subappressed, white hispid; branches ascending; stem leaves oblong to linear, 1-3.5 cm × 2-5 mm, spreading hirsute, hairs discoid at base, usually flexed along midvein, rarely flat, apex obtuse. Inflorescences terminal, to 5-8 cm in fruit; bracts linear. Fruiting pedicel ca. 3.3 mm, erect. Calyx 5-parted; lobes spreading, linear, ca. 2.5 mm, 4-5 mm in fruit. Corolla blue-purple, campanulate, ca. 3 mm; tube ca. as long as calyx; limb spreading horizontally, 2.5-3 mm wide. Style ca. 0.5 mm, slightly surpassing nutlets. Nutlets oblong-ovoid, ca. 3 mm, adaxially wrinkled-tuberculate; disc narrowly lanceolate, center line keeled, with a single row of marginal glochids; glochids erect, rarely spreading horizontally, 1.2-2 mm, somewhat widened and contiguous toward nutlet base.

Roadsides, farms, hillside meadows, deserts, arid canyons. Gansu, Nei Mongol, Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan]