An annual, erect, aromatic herb, 30—50 cm tall, with a well-developed root system. Stem slender, obtusely quadrangular, often branched from the base, unbranched or only sparsely branched at the apex, thinly to densely covered with short curled hairs. Leaves decussately opposite; petiole 0—1.5 cm long; blade oblong-elliptical or narrowly obovate-elliptical, 2—8 cm x 1.2—3.5 cm, base narrowly acute or rounded, margin crenate or serrulate, apex acute or obtuse. Inflorescence axillary or terminal, raceme-like, 5—20 cm long, composed of many-flowered verticillasters; pedicel 5—6 mm long; calyx campanulate, 2—2.5(—3) mm long, 8-veined, covered with white hairs, upper lip 3-lobed, lower lip oblong, rounded, in fruit calyx tubular-urceolate, 4—5 mm long; corolla pink or lilac-white, 4—5 mm long, limb 2-lipped, upper lip with 3 obtuse- rounded lobes, lower lip concave, obtuse; stamens 4, in 2 pairs, filaments long-exserted, 2 anterior ones longest, posterior pair appendaged at base; ovary 4-locular, style briefly 2-fid; disk gibbous, on the anterior side shortly tongue-shaped. Fruit a nutlet, ellipsoid, flattened, 1 mm x 0.4—0.7 mm, finely granular.

PROSEA (Plant Resources of South-East Asia) Foundation

The leaves are used against dysentery, enteritis, abdominalgia, hoarseness and leucorrhoea.