Erect, medium sized, 10-70 (100) cm long, annual-perennial herb. Leaves petiolate-sessile, variously shaped, amplexicaule, glabrous. Inflorescence solitary axillary, terminal or umbellate, bracts sessile, ovate-lanceolate. Flowers tetramerous, campanulate, pedicellate, variously coloured: blue, purplish, white, spurred. Stamens adnate to corolla lobes, anthers versatile. Ovary sessile, elliptic - ovate, stigma sessile - subsessile, papillose. Capsule 10-25 seeded, dehiscing nearly to the base, seeds small, up to 2 mm long, reticulate or granular.
A genus of more than 100 species, with a sort of disjunct distribution. About 2-3 species are reported from Central and East Asia, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, U.S.S.R. and Europe. Whereas almost 100 species are reported from mountains of American continent.
In Pakistan, it is represented by one species:
