Plants perennial herbs, straggling, up to 40 cm tall or more, moderately branched; stems greyish green with a fairly dense inudmentual of spreading, eglandular hairs up to 1 mm long. Leaves: petioles up o 13-20 mm long; blades narrowly ovate, 20-35 mm long, 12-13 mm wide, bases shortly attenuate to truncate, tips obtuse to apiculate, softly pubescent, hairs 0.8-1 mm long, spreading to somewhat antrorse, dense on young leaves and buds. Inforescences of solitary axillary flowers; peduncles about 1 mm long; bracts leaflike; bracteoles linear to oblanceolate, 6-10 mm long, 0.5-2.5 mm wide. Flowers solitary, pedicels about 1 mm long; calyces green, softly pubescent, hairs 0.8-1 mm long, spreading to somewhat antrorse, outer lobes lobes narrowly ovate to ovate, moe or less equal, up to 8-17 mm long, 4-11 mm wide, entire, anterior lobes bidif for 2-5 mm distally; corollas campanulate, blue-lilac, 18-32 mm long. Capsules blackish, 10-11.5 mm long, glabrous with 2 seeds.
Barleria ventricosa grows in Juniperus forests and evergreen bushlan at 1580-1680 m in regions N1 and N2 of the Flora of Somalia. It differs frm Barleria micrantha in having softly pubescent, entire outer calyx lobes.