A perennial herb 5-20 cm tall; stems decumbent and usually rooting at the lower nodes, 1-2 dm long, many-branched, sometimes cespitose, puberulent to glabrate. Leaves ovate to ovate-cordate, 0.5-1.5 cm long, 0.4-1.2 cm wide, upper surface glabrous, lower surface minutely puberulent, margins often dull purple, coarsely crenate-serrulate, petioles 1-6 mm long. Flowers solitary in the leaf axils, pedicels 5-25 mm long; calyx 5-angled, cleft to about the middle, 2-4 mm long at anthesis, elongating up to 6 mm long in fruit; corolla pale blue or purplish, sometimes pale yellow toward base, 5-8 mm long, upper lip 2-lowed, lower lip 3-lobed, middle one slightly larger than lateral ones, the tube 4-7 mm long. Capsules oblong-ovoid, 3.5-5 mm long. Seeds pale brown, elliptic, 0.5 mm long, tuberculate.

Emetic and cathartic (plant)

PROSEA (Plant Resources of South-East Asia) Foundation

A decoction of the leaves is given as a medicine after childbirth. The leaves are applied to boils and itches, herpes-like sores, and to sores caused by forest ticks. The plant in used in treating bilious disorders, dysentery, amenorrhoea, and hepatitis. Powdered herb mixed with rice water is drunk to relieve diarrhoea, vomiting and cholera.