Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs 1–4 m tall.

Stems: Stems usually many-branched, rounded to angular, pubescent with multicellular hairs or glabrate.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, often closely spaced, usually borne on upper 4–10 nodes. Those leaves at a node subequal, symmetrical, narrowly elliptic to elliptic–oblanceolate or occasionally oblanceolate, 6–22 cm long, 1.8–5.1 cm wide. Apex attenuate or occasionally acuminate. Base attenuate or blade occasionally tapering to an auriculate base. Upper surfaces glabrate to sparsely pilose along midrib; lower surfaces sparsely to occasionally densely pilose along principal veins, occasionally appressed pilose over entire surfaces especially when young; blades thick, coriaceous. Margins entire to serrulate, the teeth widely spaced. Petioles 1–1.8 cm long, base sometimes clasping the stem or perfoliate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 1–3(–5) in cymes arising in the leaf axils and occasionally at a few nodes below the leaves, sparsely brown pilose to glabrate, peduncles 0–18 mm long, pedicels 7–38 mm long, bracts narrowly lanceolate, distinct or occasionally connate, 7–14 mm long, deciduous quickly after anthesis, and sometimes apparently suppressed when peduncle absent. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 2–5(6)-lobed, zygomorphic, fusiform in bud, tipped by a beak 3–5 mm long, in anthesis pale green, 12–28 mm long, deciduous after anthesis, tube 7–18 mm long, sparsely shaggy brown pilose to glabrous, glabrous within, upper 3 lobes 3–5 mm long, usually remaining coherent, lower 2 lobes 7–10 mm long. Corolla usually bilabiate, white, tube narrowly funnelform, curved near middle, 12–18 mm long, ca. 4 mm in diameter medially, glabrous, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, the lobes imbricate in bud, upper lobes broadly ovate, 3–16.5 mm long, 3–8 mm wide, lower lobes 6–12 mm long, 4–12 mm wide. Stamens 5, inserted about halfway up corolla tube, the 2 upper Stamens fertile, others staminodial, +/– with abortive anthers; fertile anthers coherent positioned in throat of corolla tube, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits or occasionally by apical pores. Ovary superior, oblong–ovoid, 2-carpellate, 1-celled, placentation parietal, placentas 2, ± intruded, rarely joined in center and dividing ovary into 2 cells; ovules numerous, anatropous, glabrous, apex rounded or with a stylar beak; style 4–7 mm long, glabrous; stigma capitate, 2-lobed, lobes usually elliptic.

Fruit: Fruit a fleshy or firm berry; white; ellipsoid; 1.8–3 cm long; glabrous; often tipped by the persistent stylar beak. Seeds numerous; ellipsoid; minute; ca. 0.3 mm long; the surface reticulate.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Scattered to fairly common in diverse mesic to wet forest.

Elevation Range: (120–)600–1,420 m.