Erect perennial herbs; stems fleshy, 5-15 dm long, sparsely to moderately puberulent. Leaves variously colored green, red, purple, yellow or variegated, membranous, ovate-deltate to broadly ovate, (7-) 10-21 cm long, 2.5-10 cm wide, upper surface sparsely to densely scabrid to hirtellous or strigillose, lower surface glandular punctate and hirtellous, especially on veins, petioles 2-5.5 cm long, strigillose. Flowers in verticillasters or irregularly branched cymes 5-1- (-25) cm long, bracts ovate, caducous; calyx 2-2.5 mm long, enlarging to 4-6 mm long in fruit, hirtellous and glandular punctate, the glands black, upper lip broadly ovate, becoming recurved in fruit, apex acute, lower lip 4-toothed, the teeth distinctly unequal, lateral ones very short, truncate to rounded, median ones sharply pointed; corolla blue or violet, tube whitish, lower lip boat-shaped, longer than upper lip, 8-13 mm long; stamens nearly included in corolla tube. Nutlets brown, shiny, broadly ovoid to lenticular, 1-1.2 mm long.

Analgesic, contraceptive, depurative, emmenagogue, hallucinogen, narcotic.

PIER

To treat abdominal distension, asthma, bruise, colic, conjunctivosis, cough, cut, dyspepsia, elephantiasis, gastrosis, headache, nausea, pain, parturition and sore.