An evergreen shrub 3 to 4 ft high with square, slender, drooping, finely downy, very leafy branches. Leaves clustered, 3⁄4 to 11⁄2 in. long, narrowly oblong-lanceolate to oval, entire. Flowers mostly in pairs, borne from June onwards in slender, glandular-downy racemose inflorescences 2 to 6 in. long. Calyx 3⁄8 in. long, two-lipped, purplish, ribbed. Lower lip of corolla carmine-red, 3⁄4 in. wide; the upper, hooded part more rosy and hairy.
Native of Mexico and Texas; discovered by Dr J. Gregg in 1848 but not described until 1870. It first flowered with Thompson of Ipswich in 1882. Perhaps scarcely as hardy as S. microphylla.