Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Slender, few–branched or unbranched shrubs.

Stems: Stems rooting along lower part when decumbent, glabrous or pubescent.

Roots: Taprooted.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate, usually clustered toward upper part of branch. Blades deltate–ovate to deltate–cordate or rarely cordate (3–)5–29 cm long, (2–)2.5–9 cm wide. Apex long-acuminate or acuminate. Base cordate to truncate or occasionally very broadly cuneate. Surfaces glabrous or lower surfaces pubescent. Margins dentate–serrate. Petioles (0.6–)1.5–8 cm long. Stipules asymmetrically broadly deltate or deltate, 5–16 mm long, 2–7 mm wide, remotely glandular–toothed and somewhat irregularly lacerate near apex, rarely further down along margins.

Flowers: Flowers 1–2(–4) per peduncle, axillary on stems and lateral branches, peduncles 8–60 mm long, pedicels 20–70 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect); apparently all chasmogamous. Calyx of 5 sepals, subequal, linear–lanceolate, glabrous or pubescent, imbricate, margins ± ciliate, upper sepal ca. 5–8 mm long, lateral ones ca. 5.5–9 mm long, lower ones ca. 5–8 mm long. Corolla zygomorphic, consisting of 5 distinct petals, these unequal, lateral ones smaller than upper pair, petals white tinged purple, especially toward base, lower surface usually tinged darker purple, obliquely spatulate, ± ciliate toward base, upper petals 10–21 mm long, lateral ones 10.5–23 mm long, lower one 11.3–22.5 mm long, saccate at base. Stamens 5, 4.2–4.5 mm long, connective of lower ones prolonged into a nose–shaped or straight, broadly rectangular-cuneate structure ca. 1–2.5 mm long; staminal filaments coherent around ovary; anther connective of lower Stamens prolonged into an appendage, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, 3-carpellate, 1-celled, placentation parietal; ovules numerous per placenta, anatropous; style 1.

Fruit: Capsules with loculicidal dehiscence; (10–)12–17(–20) mm long; elastically dehiscent by rigid keels and thin valve walls. Seeds numerous; dark brown to nearly black; obovoid; 1.8–2.3 mm long; seed coat somewhat leathery; dull; apex rounded; with fleshy; oily endosperm.

Ploidy: 2n = ca. 76*; subsp. <i>robusta</i>; 2n = 80*; subsp. <i>tracheliifolia</i>

Habitat: Mesic to wet forest.

Elevation Range: 330–1,890 m.