Annual. Stems erect, simple or branched, 10-50 cm high, with a tomentose indumentum of very short usually retrorse eglandular hairs. Leaves ovate to ovate-lanceolate, ± regularly crenate, cuneate below, acute above, with short adpressed hairs; lamina up to 5 x 3 cm; petiole of lowermost leaves up to 2 cm. Verticillasters globose, dense, borne in upper leaf axils, mostly dearly distant, 2-10, c. 2.5 cm in diameter, c. 16-40-flowered. Bracts linear to linear-lanceolate, pale green, c. 5-8 x 1-2 mm, ciliate at margins, softly subulate. Calyx 7-9 mm, elongating in fruit to c. 11 mm, ± curved, with a clearly oblique mouth, transversely-reticulately nerved and whitish above, with short eglandular hairs; teeth 8-10, narrow triangular, spinulose. Corolla 7-9 mm, white; upper lip short, entire, white-bearded, ± straight; lower lip clearly longer than upper, projecting forward. Nutlets c. 2 x 1 mm, apically finely glandular.

Fl. Per.: July-October.

Type: "Hab. in India orientali, Konig [C], in Arabia legit Dn Forsk." [not found at C].

Distribution: Pakistan, India, Arabian peninsula, E. Africa.

According to R. R. Stewart (1972), a weed of the plains. Sebald (l.c.) has recognized three varieties in east Africa: the type variety (to which our plants would belong) and two other localised endemic varieties.