Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Fleshy herbs.

Stems: Stems usually red, erect to ascending from a repent base, 15–50 cm long, 2–4mm in diameter toward base, usually few–branched, internodes 2–8 cm long, ribbed, glabrous.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite or whorled (2–4 per node). Blades elliptic–oblanceolate to elliptic–obovate, sometimes some of them elliptic or broadly obovate, 2–5.5(–7) cm long, (1–)2–3(–3.5) cm wide. Apex obtuse, broadly obtuse, or bluntly acuminate to bluntly acute. Base cuneate or attenuate. Upper surfaces glabrous or sparsely puberulent along veins or near base; lower surfaces glabrous or sparsely hirsute, occasionally moderately so; upper surfaces dark green; lower surfaces with pale green veins and red intercostal areas, sometimes entirely pale green, thickened and firm–fleshy, drying coriaceous to chartaceous. Margins flat, entire. 3-veined or 5-veined. Petioles 0.5–1.5 cm long, glabrous or sparsely hirsute. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in fleshy spikes 1 to several, axillary and terminal, 3–7.5(–8.5) cm long, sometimes the lateral ones as short as 2 cm long, the rachis ca. 1.5–2.5 mm in diameter, glabrous, flowers moderately to densely congested, peduncles 1–2 cm long, glabrous. Flowers bisexual (perfect), perianth absent. Each flower subtended by a peltate bract. Calyx (sepals) absent. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 2. Ovary superior, broadly ovoid, 1-carpellate, 1-celled, apex ± slightly oblique; ovules 1 per cell, orthotropous, erect; stigmas terminal or slightly subterminal.

Fruit: Fruit subglobose; ca. 1 mm long; papillose–viscid with sessile glands. Seeds 1 per fruit; with scanty endosperm and copious; starchy perisperm.

Ploidy: 2n = 44; 42–46

Habitat: Wet to rarely mesic forests.

Elevation Range: 580–1,530 m.