Diffuse, branched, creeping or straggling herb; rooting at lower nodes; leaves sessile, linear or narrowly oblong, obtuse, pinkish-violet, entire, often undulate, sheaths sparsely hairy with long hairs, pubescent, ciliate along the margin of mouth; spathes ovate or orbicular, shortly peduncled, broader than long with aerial chasmogamous and underground cleistogamous flowers, in axillary, branched, 3-5 flowered cymes; flowers of upper branch of cyme small, deciduous, of lower fertile, inner branch with a single male flower, outer ones 2-3 flowered; petals sky blue or violet; sepals 3; outer one cucullate; inner two often connate at base; petal 3, ovate, unequal, clawed, 2 larger, third one smaller, blue to violet; stamens 3-fertile; filaments glabrous, anthers oblong, one usually larger; staminodes 2, 3, 6-lobed, yellow; ovary trilocular, glabrous, ovules 1 or 2 in anterior locule, solitary or absent in posterior locule; capsules usually 3-seeded, orange-brown; seeds smooth, sub-globose, cleistogamous flowers usually solitary in a spathe.