Plants perennial herbs or subshrubs, erect, 0.15-1 m tall, with simple hairs only; stems with mostly short retrorse or appressed hairs. Leaves petiolate; blades narrowly ovate or, less often, elliptic, narrowly obovate, or linear up to 15-70 mm long and 2-40 mm wide, bases cuneate to atttenuate, margins entire or shallowly serrate, tips acute. Inflorescences with more or less well-spaced flower clusters; bracts persistent or deciduous. Fruiting calyces 6-8mm long, open, throats hairy inside, upprr lobes suborbicular, 3-4.5 mm long, 3-4 mm wide, bases rounded, lateral lobes deltoid, cuspidate, lower lobes not connate, lanceolate, acuminate; corolla lobes 6-11 mm long, white with purple or pink markings; anterior staments 3-6 mm longer tan the lower corolla lips. Nutlets 1.3-2 mm long, 0.901.2 mm almost smooth, grey-black, producing mucilage when wet.
Ocimum forskaolii grows along roadsides, in disturbed or overgrazed ground, abandonned fields, rocky slopes in Acacia woodlanss at 80-1800 m. It is known from all regions recognized in the Flora of Somalia as well as Egyptm Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and the Arabian peninsula.