Echinospermum intermedium Ledebour, Fl. Altaic. 1: 199. 1829.

Herbs annual. Taproots stout, conical, ca. 7 cm. Stems erect, usually single, much branched above middle, to 60 cm tall, gray hispid; branches ascending; stem leaves somewhat crowded, erect, linear to narrowly lanceolate, 2-5 cm × 2-4 mm, flat or flexed along midvein, hirsute, hairs discoid at base, adaxially sparser, apex obtuse. Inflorescences terminal on stem and branches, to 5-20 cm in fruit; bracts leaflike, slightly longer than fruit, apex gradually reduced. Pedicel erect, slightly elongated after anthesis, 2-3 mm. Calyx 5-parted; lobes spreading, linear, ca. 3 mm, to 5 mm in fruit. Corolla blue-purple or light blue, campanulate, ca. 3-3.5 mm, somewhat longer than calyx; tube ca. 1 mm; throat constricted, appendages attached at middle of corolla tube; limb ca. 3 mm wide; lobes oblong. Style ca. 0.5 mm, not surpassing nutlets. Fruit broadly ovoid to subglobose, ca. 3 mm; nutlets broadly ovoid, 2.5-3 mm, granulose, adaxially wrinkled; disc ovate with a single row of marginal glochids; glochids spreading horizontally, 1-1.5 mm, bases slightly wider and contiguous or free. Fl. and fr. May-Aug.

Waste places, fields, grasslands, sandy areas, arid slopes. Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, NW Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang [Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan].