Herbaceous or suffrutescent plants; stems up to 1 meter high, erect, ascending or sometimes procumbent and rooting at the nodes, the pubescence a mixture of minute grayish hairs and longer glandular ones; petioles slender, 1 to 4 cm. long; leaf blades ovate to oblong- ovate, 3 to 17 cm. long and 1.5 to 6.5 cm. wide, obtuse or acute at apex, abruptly narrowed at base, glandular-pubescent, grayish-puberu- lous or glabrate; inflorescence axillary, divaricate or ascending, dicho- tomously branched; bracts leaflike, glandular-pubescent, those sub- tending the flowers 2 to 10 mm. long and 1 to 4 mm. wide; calyx 1 to 1.5 cm. long, glandular-pubescent, the segments linear-subulate, un- equal; corolla blue, finely pubescent, 2 to 4 cm. long, the lobes oval, 6 to 7 mm. long, 5 mm. wide, the limb 1 to 1.5 cm. broad; capsule cylindric, 10 to 13 mm. long, 2 mm. in diameter, erect, pointed, glabrous, 8-seeded; seeds flat, 2 mm, long, 1.5 mm. wide, mucilaginous- pubescent when moistened. VERNACULAR NAME: Culantro (Bro. Elias 720). A strong penetrating rather unpleasant odor is often associated with the living plants ("Planta hedionda," Dugand & Jaramillo 4091). In Atlántico, Dugand states, the plants often grow in scattered col- onies in dry thorny thickets. Thickets and waste places in general. Usually found in dry situa- tions from 0 to 200 meters altitude. Mexico to northern South Amer- ica and the West Indies.