Description:
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Perennial herb with several trailing, sometimes rooting stems from a creeping woody rootstock with fleshy roots; stems to 75 cm long, terete or subquadrangular, with sparse to dense glossy setose hairs, rarely glabrous. Leaves palmately veined, subglabrous to pilose with glossy setose hairs; petiole 0.3–1.5 cm long; lamina ovate-oblong to elliptic or triangular-ovate, largest 8.5–18 × 4–9 cm; apex acute to obtuse, apiculate, base truncate to cordate with rounded or hastate lobes; margin entire or slightly crenate. Flowers in erect 4–8-flowered axillary racemes; peduncle and axis 5–20 cm long, glabrous to pilose with glossy setose hairs; bracts persistent, 2–7 mm long, rarely lowermost foliaceous and up to 7 × 5.5 cm, glabrous to pilose; pedicels 6–18(32 in fruit) mm long, glabrous to finely puberulous, rarely also with long glossy hairs; bracteoles pale green with conspicuous raised dark green venation, 1.8–2.8(4) × 0.6–1.5(1.7) cm, ovate-oblong to elliptic, acute to obtuse, apiculate, with long glossy capitate glands, densest along veins. Calyx glabrous, 1–3 mm long, the broadly triangular lobes about half. Corolla limb and upper part of tube deep purple-blue to deep royal blue, lower part of tube whitish, throat deep yellow; tube 2.5–4 cm long; lobes 1–1.5 × 1–2 cm, conspicuously glandular ciliate. Capsule c.8 mm wide, beak c.15 mm long. Seeds pale brown, c.7 mm in diameter with reticulate surface and a strong lateral ridge. |