Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Apparently scandent perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems glabrous, rarely with very few scattered short hairs.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades lanceolate, ca. 6–12 cm long, ca. 1.5–2.3 cm wide. Apex long-acuminate. Base cuneate. Surfaces glabrous. Margins serrulate. Petioles 1–3 cm long, glabrate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 6–10 per verticillaster, in unbranched, terminal racemose inflorescences 15–30 cm long, pedicels 7–14 mm long, glabrous, these on an inconspicuous peduncle ca. 1 mm long, bracts lanceolate, (15–)25–30 mm long, glabrous. Calyx obconical, 4–7 mm long, enlarging in fruit, nerves prominent, glabrous, usually 5-toothed, the teeth narrowly deltate to lanceolate, 2.5–4 mm long, apex attenuate, splitting longitudinally, usually persistent or sometimes only ventral 1/2 persistent. Corolla bilabiate, color unknown, tube narrowly funnelform, usually curved, ca. 6–8 mm long, glabrate to very sparsely pubescent, lower lip more than 6 mm long, slightly folded to form a groove, margins somewhat undulate, apex emarginate or entire; nectary disk often present at base of ovary, annular or developed on anterior side only. Stamens 4, both pairs of similar length or upper pair slightly longer, ascending the upper corolla lip, included, aligned with the sinuses; filaments inserted near throat, usually pubescent; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits; anther sacs divaricate. Ovary superior, 2-carpellate, placentation basal-axile; ovules 1 per ovary lobe; style 1, included, arising between lobes, shortly 2-lobed, the lobes clavate; stigmatic only at apex, 1 lobe often rudimentary; stigmas 2.

Fruit: Nutlets ca. 4 mm long; 1-seeded; dark green to black; drupaceous; exocarp fleshy; obovoid; margins slightly winged; obliquely attached at the connate base; spreading and exserted from calyx at maturity. Seeds with endosperm absent or scanty and oily.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

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