Erect succulent or semi-succulent glabrous annual 8–50 cm high, often red-tinged; stems solitary or several from the base. Leaves linear to narrowly oblanceolate, rarely narrowly lanceolate, 3–60 mm long, 0.2–3(–4.5) mm wide, usually reduced towards inflorescence, narrowly toothed (sometimes indistinctly), rarely apparently entire, withered at anthesis; petiole indistinct. Flowers bisexual, in terminal and sometimes axillary 4–15-flowered, 1-sided racemes, axis often sinuous; pedicels 2–14 mm long, glabrous. Calyx-lobes 1.3–3 mm long, entire; corolla 2-lipped, 9–14 mm long, blue, upper 2-lobes short, strongly recurved, lower 3 lobes decurved, narrowly elliptic, oblanceolate, narrowly lanceolate or oblong, the central lobe longest, 5.2–8.5 mm long, c. 2 mm wide, oblanceolate to oblong, usually obtuse and apiculate, lateral lobes falcate, tube 4–5 mm long, split virtually to base, papillose to minutely pubescent internally mainly along central channel; filaments 2–3 mm long, anther tube 1.8–2.3 mm long. Capsule obliquely obovoid to obliquely obconical, 5–12 mm; seeds brown, ellipsoid long to oblong, usually irregularly angular, 0.2–0.3 mm long, reticulate. Flowers Nov.–Feb.
LoM, Wim, VVP, VRiv, GipP, CVU, GGr, NIS, EGL, EGU, WPro, HSF, MonT, VAlp. Also SA, Qld, NSW, Tas. Rather uncommon, with scattered records across the State, but apparently absent from the far north-west. Usually occurring in rather dry Eucalyptus and Callitris woodland and open-forest.
