Perennial herb. Stems 9-33 cm long, erect from a creeping and rooting base or decumbent (? to prostrate), terete or 2-4(6)-lined, smooth, often branched. Leaves sessile or with petiole up to 2 mm long, lamina 6-45 mm. long, 4-21 mm broad, ovate or oblong or elliptic to obovate or circular, apex subobtuse to rounded, base subcordate-amplexicaul to cuneate, lower pairs entire, upper pairs entire or with glandular-ciliate auricles and sometimes glandular-ciliate margin, with intramarginal black glands. Inflorescence a 1-17-flowered subcorymbose cyme, with branches monochasial after first branching, bracts usually with glandular-ciliate margin and auricles, flowers 1-2(2.07) cm in diameter. Sepals 3.5-8 mm long, linear or narrowly oblong to lanceolate or narrowly ovate, acute to subacute, free, not or scarcely ribbed, with or without stalked or sessile marginal glands. Petals 6-13 mm long, oblanceolate to narrowly oblong, without marginal dots, sometimes with laminar black dots to lines. Stamens in 3' fascicles (2+2+1). Ovary 3-locular, 2-3.5 mm long, styles 0.9-1.3 x longer than the ovary, free, divergent, straight. Capsule 4-9 mm long. ovoid-cylindric to ellipsoid, longitudinally vittate. Seeds 0.5-0.6 mm long, not carinate, testa densely scalariform-reticulate.

Fl. Per.: June-August.

Type: Nepal, Gossain Than, Wallich (G, holotype, BM!K!).

B-7 Hazara: Murree Hills, Dunga Gali R.R. Stewart 1561 (RAW), Siran Range, Urni, Duthie 24.viii.99 (RAW) , Thandiani, R.R. Stewart 27773 (BM, RAW), B-8 Kashmir: E. Liddar Valley, Phryslen to Pahlgam, Robson 1949 (BM) , Pahlgam, R.R. Stewart 21696(K) , Lidder Valley, R.R. Stewart 8246 (RAW) , C-8 Kashmir: Pir Panjal Range, Fras Nag, R.R. Stewart and E. Nasir 23155 (RAW) , C-9 Kashmir: Bhadawar Distr., Chithar, Kal Nai, Ludlow and Sherriff 9228 (BM).

Distribution: W. Pakistan to Tibet, Yunnan and Burma.

In wood clearings, alpine meadows and rocky or grassy slopes, often in damp places, 2250-3000 m in the Flora area, up to 3900 m elsewhere. This species is very variable, but none of its forms appears to warrant taxonomic recognition. It can be distinguished from the closely related H. elodeoides by the eglandular petal margin and usually by the lined (not terete) stem, the subobtuse to rounded leaf apex and the habit.