Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Erect, slender perennial herbs, probably somewhat woody at base.

Stems: Stems quadrangular, 3–5 dm long, densely whitish puberulent, the hairs usually retrorse.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades oblong–cordate, 4–7 cm long, 1.2–2 cm wide. Apex obtuse. Upper surfaces minutely velvety tomentose; lower surfaces densely whitish tomentose. Margins crenulate. Petioles usually 1.5–3 cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers subsessile, in racemes ca. 2 dm long, 2 flowers per verticillaster, bracts linear–oblong, 4–6 mm long, lowest ones somewhat foliaceous, 10–18 mm long. Calyx 9–12 mm long, actinomorphic, cylindrical, closed at maturity or nearly so, 5-toothed, the teeth short or rudimentary, densely appressed pilose, lobes 2–4 mm long, splitting longitudinally, usually persistent or sometimes only ventral 1/2 persistent. Corolla zygomorphic, bilabiate, white or sometimes tinged purple externally, the tube narrowly funnelform, tube 10–14 mm long, upper lip ca. 6 mm long, upper lip entire, undulate-crisped, lower lip slightly shorter, 3-lobed, the lobes suborbicular, middle lobe largest, margins strongly undulate-crisped; nectary disk often present at base of ovary, annular or developed on anterior side only. Stamens 4, both pairs of similar length or the upper pair slightly longer, ascending under the upper lip, included; filaments inserted near the throat; anthers dithecal; anther sacs divaricate, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, 2-carpellate, placentation basal-axile; ovules 1 per ovary lobe; style 1, included, shortly 2-lobed, the lobes clavate, pubescent in upper part; stigmatic only at the truncate apex, 1 lobe often rudimentary; stigmas 2.

Fruit: Nutlets brown; ca. 3.5 mm long; both ends truncate; the outer face with several indistinct longitudinal ribs. Seeds with endosperm absent or scanty and oily.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Formerly occurring in low elevation; dry habitats on central to southwestern Molokai.

Elevation Range: