Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Diffuse vines.

Stems: Stems many-branched, often forming large tangled masses, densely spreading long–villous, rarely some hairs gland–tipped.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades deltate to narrowly deltate, 2.5–6(–15) cm long, 1.1–2.5(–5) cm wide. Apex acute to obtuse. Base cordate. Upper surfaces sparsely to moderately hispid; lower surfaces inconspicuously glandular–dotted and sparsely to moderately hispid, especially along veins; Leaves thin, flaccid. Margins irregularly and shallowly lobed, the lobes deltate. Petioles 0.8–2.5(–6.2) cm long, densely hispid. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 6–8 per verticillaster, in unbranched, leafy, terminal, racemose inflorescences ca. 5–20 cm long, pedicels 1.2–3 mm long, hispid, bracts ovate to suborbicular, 5–30 mm long, lowermost pair larger, 20–40 mm long, pubescence same as that of leaves. Calyx campanulate, 3–3.5 mm long, enlarging in fruit, nerves inconspicuous, densely glandular–dotted and sparsely hispid, usually 5-toothed, the teeth deltate, 0.9–1.1 mm long, apex acute to obtuse, splitting longitudinally, usually persistent or sometimes only ventral 1/2 persistent. Corolla bilabiate, white, tube narrowly funnelform, usually curved, 6–8 mm long, villous, upper lip entire or 2-lobed, flat or concave, ca. 2.5–4 mm long, villous, lower lip ca. 4–6 mm long, 3-lobed, lateral lobes ovate, slightly asymmetrical, lower lobe broadly ovate to suborbicular, 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. 2.5 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: Occurring in wet forest.

Elevation Range: 700–1,280 m.