It has a natural pantropical distribution encompassing tropical and warm-temperate regions of Australasia, Indomalaya, Polynesia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas.

[3][5] It is a herbaceous plant, annual or perennial with numerous prostrate or ascending stems, slender, with appressed and spreading hairs.

The flowers are isolated or grouped in pauciflorous cymes, borne by filiform peduncles, 2.5 to 3.5 cm long.

The rounded corolla, with pentameric symmetry, blue in color, rarely white, is 7 to 10 mm in diameter.

[citation needed] This herb used in traditional medicine of East Asia for its purported psychotropic and nootropic properties.