An erect plant 15-40 cm tall. Stem solitary or few, striate, strigosely hairy with unequal hairs; longer ones up to 2 mm long, arising from a swollen base. Hairs on leaves similar. Basal leaves oblanceolate, obtuse, up to 10 cm long, with a ± distinct petiole up to 30 cm long. Cauline and upper leaves subsessile to sessile, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, sometimes subacute, 30-100 x 7-30 mm, entire to undulate or subdenticulate. Bracts leafy, but smaller. Pedicels 3-4 mm long, up to 15 mm in fruit, hairy. Calyx 5-partite, c. 5 mm long, accrescent in fruit; lobes linear-lanceolate. Corolla blue, c. equalling or slightly exceeding the calyx; tube unequal, obtuse, scales of throat in 5 groups, densely papillose. Anthers c. 1 mm long, attached c. 2 mm from tube. Style 1.5 mm long. Nutlets c. 3, mm long, transversely ovoid, rugulose, tuberculate. Basal ring thick, minutely rugulose.

Fl. Per.: April-August.

Type: Described from the Orient.

Distribution: S. E. Europe, Africa (Ethiopia, Abyssinica), Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan eastward to Tibet.

The type subspecies differs by having longer flowers, leaf margin dentate and a more compact inflorescence. Commonly found as a weed from 900-3900 m.