Erect to semiscandent shrubs, 1-4 m high. Branches glabrate when young, tetragonous with grooved sides, greenish, with many cystoliths; older branches terete to subtetragonous, greyish, with brachyblasts. Leaves glabrate, ovate to elliptic, 30-110 x 19-50 mm; petiole 5-35 mm long. Flowers in spikes, these 21-130 mm long, terminal on brachyblasts or main shoot. Bracts imbricate in four rows, all fertile, strigose on ribs above with subsessile glands, rhomboid to elliptic, 10-17 x 3-5 mm, with 5 distinct ribs. Bracteoles with sessile glands, narrowly elliptic to triangular, 6-12 x 1.5-2.5 mm. Calyx strigose to sericeous, 7-11 mm long; lobes densely glandular and hairy on ribs, narrowly elliptic to triangular, 6-9 x 1.5-2.0 mm. Corolla 43-53 mm long, red to pinkish purple, rarely yellow; tube 12-21 mm long; upper lip 28-35 x 9-11 mm; lower lip narrowly obovate, 25-33 x 3.5-4.5 mm. Stamens: filaments 25-30 mm long, anthers 3-4 mm long. Pistil: ovary glabrate, 1.5-2.5 x 1 mm; style 38-49 mm long. Capsule 30.0 x 4.5 mm. Figure 15.