Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrub 1.5 to 3.5 m tall.

Stems: Stems pubescent, rounded to angular.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, unequal, subcoriaceous. Blades elliptic–oblanceolate, 6.8–19.7 long, 1.7–7. 7 cm wide. Apex subacuminate. Base leaf base cuneate. Surfaces hirsute. Margins entire or toothed. Petioles 1.5–4 cm long, pubescent. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in cymes 3–9 cm long, 1–6–flowered, usually in the upper leaf axils, pubescent, pedicels 13–25 mm long, peduncles with minute to large and foliaceous, distinct or occasionally connate bracts, those of pedicels smaller. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 21–22 mm long, 2–5(6)-lobed, pubescent, the tube spathaceous or variously cleft into equal or unequal lobes, lobes 15–16 mm long, deciduous or persistent in fruit. Corolla usually bilabiate, lanceolate, 25 mm long, pubescent, white or yellow, occasionally green, orange, reddish, purplish, or streaked, usually fleshy, campanulate to salverform, funnelform, or cylindrical, the tube straight or curved, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, the lobes imbricate in bud. Stamens 5, inserted about halfway up corolla tube, the 2 upper Stamens fertile, others staminodial, +/– with abortive anthers; fertile anthers coherent positioned in throat of corolla tube, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits or occasionally by apical pores. Ovary superior, oblong–ovoid, 2-carpellate, 1-celled, placentation parietal, placentas 2, ± intruded, rarely joined in center and dividing ovary into 2 cells; ovules numerous, anatropous, pubescent or glabrous, apex rounded or with a stylar beak; style present or absent; stigma capitate, 2-lobed, lobes usually elliptic.

Fruit: Fruit a fleshy or firm berry; ovoid; ellipsoid to cylindrical; occasionally subglobose; often tipped by the persistent stylar beak. Seeds numerous; ellipsoid; minute; usually less than ca. 1 mm long; the surface reticulate.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: