Blue rod

Description

Faintly scented perennial herbs to > 80 cm high, sometimes suckering, with erect branches, glabrous but rarely for tiny aculeate non-glandular hairs on the branches and leaves, particularly the inflorescence. Leaves opposite or in whorls of 3 or 4; basal ones oblanceolate to narrow-elliptic, 1–5 cm long, 2–5 mm wide, margins toothed. Flowers in racemose inflorescences, 2 or 3 in clusters in the bract axils (1 often with a shoot early in flowering); pedicels usually 2–5 mm long. Sepals 3–6 mm long. Corolla 4–7 mm long, blue-purple; tube white at base, yellow apically; lower lips spreading, recurved. Capsule 3.5–5 mm long.