Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Erect perennial herbs or subshrubs 2–3(–4) m tall.

Stems: Stems usually hispid, the hairs simple, appressed or retrorse.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Leaves alternate. Blades basically orbicular in outline, up to 30 cm wide, shallowly to deeply 3–lobed, 5–lobed, or 7–lobed or parted, the divisions deltate to oblong–lanceolate. Surfaces sparsely hirsute. Margins coarsely serrate to dentate. Stipules present.

Flowers: Capsules dark brown to black, ovoid to oblong, terete or slightly angled, 5-8 cm long, usually hispid. Calyx (1–)1.8–3.5 cm long, spathaceous, 5-toothed, sometimes irregularly cleft or truncate, the lobes valvate in bud, splitting longitudinally at anthesis and later deciduous with the corolla and staminal column. Corolla funnelform, actinomorphic to moderately zygomorphic; 5 petals, obovate, yellow, purple–spotted at base, (4–)7–9 cm long, distinct from each other but adnate at base to staminal column, convolute in bud.

Fruit: Fruit a loculicidally dehiscent; usually elongate capsules; dark brown to black; ovoid to oblong; terete or slightly angled; 5–8 cm long; usually hispid. See 3-4 mm long.

Ploidy: 2N=72

Habitat: In Hawai?i occasionally cultivated and known from a single naturalized collection made in 1890 from near the falls of the Hanap?p? River; Kaua?i.

Elevation Range: