Roots often thickened, up to 1 cm in diam. Stems often several from one root, 15-60 cm tall, simple, glabrous, less often retrorsely hispidulous or sparsely retrorsely hirsute. Basal leaves petiolate; blade deltoid or ovate. Cauline leaves sessile or lower ones shortly petiolate; blade ovate, lanceolate, narrowly elliptic, or linear, 3-14 × 0.1-2.5 cm, glabrous, very rarely hairy, margin entire or sparsely serrate. Flowers solitary, or several in a pseudoraceme, never in a panicle. Hypanthium obconic or obovoid, glabrous; calyx lobes subulate, 5-10 × 1-1.5(-2) mm. Corolla blue or blue-purple, campanulate, 1.7-2.2 cm; lobes ovate-deltoid, 4-7 mm. Disk broadly tubular, 3-8 × 2-3 mm. Style nearly as long as or slightly longer than corolla. Capsule obovoid-oblong, 5-10 × 4-7 mm. Fl. Jul-Sep, fr. Aug-Sep.

Meadows or grassy places at forest margins, alpine meadows or scrub; (1200-)2500-4700 m. C and SE Gansu, E and S Qinghai, Shaanxi, NW Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang [N India, E Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Tajikistan].