Plants up to 68 cm tall, with a branched woody stock. Stems weak, glabrous, greenish-yellow, erect to ascending, scarcely branching. Leaves 25-50 x 15-25 mm, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, obovate to spathulate, base attenuate; acute, surface glabrous, margin scabrid. Bracts and .bracteoles lanceolate-linear, often carious. Inflorescence a few-flowered dichasium. Pedicels slender, glabrous. Calyx 14-18 (-20) mm, campanulate, inflated, in fruit bladdery, greenish-yellow; glabrous; teeth broadly triangular, acute; nerves about 20, distinct. Petals white pink, limb 5- 6 mm, deeply bifid; claw 12-13 mm, auriculate. Coronal small or sometimes absent. Carpophore 3-4 mm, glabrous. Capsule c. 10 mm, contracted at the mouth. Seeds c. 1 mm long, reniform, black, with tube arranged in concentric rings.

Fl. Per.: June-July.

Type: Described from cultivated plants.

Distribution: Europe, N.W. Africa, Arabia, temperate Asia.

Common in the northern areas of Pakistan from 1540-3048 m. A variable species, especially in Europe, but fairly homogeneous in Pakistan. Distinguished by its many nerved, inflated calyx. Sometimes confused with Cucubalus baccifer due L. due to a similar inflated calyx in the flowering stage, but differentiated by its bifid, not multifid petal limb, and usually glabrous leaves and stems.