Herbs annual or biennial, over 60 cm tall. Stems usually single, rarely 2- or 3-fascicled, branched above, strigose or spreading hispid. Basal leaves oblong-lanceolate, to 5 cm, densely white hirsute, withered in fruit; stem leaves lanceolate to linear, 2-5 cm × 3-6 mm, flat or longitudinally folded along midvein, densely hirsute, hairs discoid at base, base attenuate, apex obtuse; midvein distinctly protruding. Inflorescences terminal on stems and branches, 7-25 cm in fruit; bracts linear. Fruiting pedicel erect, 1-3 mm, strigose. Calyx lobes spreading, linear, 2.5-3 mm, to 4-5 mm in fruit. Corolla light blue-purple, campanulate, 3.5-4 mm; throat appendages ca. 0.5 mm; limb 2.5-3 mm wide; lobes oblong to broadly obovate. Style surpassing nutlets by ca. 1 mm. Fruit broadly ovoid, 2.5-3 × ca. 3 mm, above with spaces between nutlets; nutlets acute ovoid, adaxially with scattered tubercles; disc narrowly ovate, granulose; marginal glochids in 3 rows; inner glochids ca. 1.5 mm, thin, hard, ascending to erect, bases somewhat widened and free; middle glochids shorter, somewhat clavate; outer glochids extremely short, adaxial in lower part.

Heteromorphic nutlets on upper part of inflorescences, 2 nutlets with inner marginal glochids of disc distinctly widened at base and confluent into a broad wing; wing usually erect, ± cupular. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep.

Waste areas, rocky slopes, mountain terraces, roadsides; 600-2200 m. Gansu, Hebei, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang [N India, Kashmir, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan; Europe]