Herbs perennial. Rhizomes ascending, dark brown; roots numerous, fibrous; crown covered by persistent petioles. Stems erect, 20-35 cm tall, sparsely strigose. Basal leaves withered at anthesis; petiole 0.5-5 cm; stem leaves lanceolate, 3-8 × 1.5-3 cm, abaxially densely strigose, slightly purplish, base cuneate to rounded, apex acuminate. Inflorescences solitary or paired, basal; peduncle 1-4 cm; middle and lower parts with leaflike bracts. Pedicel obliquely spreading, 3-8 mm in fruit. Calyx 5-parted; lobes lanceolate, ca. 1 mm, slightly enlarged, to 2 mm, strigose. Corolla light red; tube ca. 1.5 mm, ca. 2 mm wide; throat appendages ca. 0.4 mm, apex retuse; limb 3.5-4 mm wide; lobes obovate. Anthers elliptic, ca. 0.5 mm. Nutlets gray-brown, semiglobose-tetrahedral, ca. 1.3 mm, tuberculate, adaxial bottom surface smaller than 2 lateral surfaces, abaxial surfaces ovate and convex, narrowly ribbed around margin, apex rounded and obtuse; stipe ca. 0.2 mm.

* Hillside meadows, roadsides; ca. 2900 m. Sichuan (Barkam Xian), NW Yunnan