Annual, straggling or erect, 15-30 cm, twigs angular, pubescent to glabrescent with long internodes. Leaves with 0.5-3 cm long, grooved, densely hairy petiole; lamina ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 1-3 x 0.5-1.5 cm, hairy on both sides, margin ciliate, entire, basally attenuate, apex acute. Flowers very small, c. 6-7 mm long, 2-5 in axillary fascicles; bracts minute, ovate-lanceolate or ± falcate, with simple and glandular hairs; bracteoles 1-2, present or absent, similar to but smaller than bracts. Calyx deeply 5-partite, lobes linear-subulate, c. 4 mm long, elongated in fruit to c. 6 mm, scarious margined, densely glandular-hairy and ciliate. Corolla c. 5 mm long, pubescent outside, tube nearly half as long as lobes, upper lip oblong, 2-fid, lower lip with 3 obovate lobes. Stamens included, anther lobes unequal, spirally twisted, lower lobe with a narrow white appendage. Fruit dimorphic, normal unwinged capsule, ellipsoidal, 3-4 mm long, 2-loculed, 4-seeded, ± compressed, pubescent; abnormal capsule longitudinally 6-winged, ovoid, unilocular, 2-seeded, wings unequal, retrorsely cut, hairy. Seeds dimorphic, brown, obliquely cordate, c. 1 mm long, tuberculate and glabrous in normal fruit, obliquely ovoid, c. 1.5 mm long, punctuate in winged capsules.

Fl. Per.: Aug.-November.

Type: Kurrachee, Kullankote Lake, Stocks 74 (K).

Distribution: Western India, Pakistan (Sind) and E. Tropical Africa.

Closely allied to Justicia leptocarpa Lindau ex Engl. from S. Africa and distinguished by its smaller floral parts and capsules.