Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs to small trees (1–)3–7 m tall.

Stems: Stiffly pubescent distally with sessile, bifurcate to stellate hairs.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades elliptic to oblong–elliptic, ovate or sometimes obovate, 3–10(–21) cm long, 1.5–6(–11) cm wide, unlobed. Apex acute to acuminate. Base broadly cuneate to obtuse. Upper surfaces glabrous to blabrate; lower surfaces glabrate to moderately pubescent; Green, glossy, subcoriaceous. Margins crenate to serrate, sometimes undulate in upper ½ or more, occasionally entire. Petioles 0.5–4(–7) cm long, stellate pubescent adaxially in a canalized line. Stipules subulate to lanceolate–linear, (2.5–)4–13 mm long.

Flowers: Flowers solitary, borne near the ends of branches; pedicels 1–4 cm long, articulate, involucral bracts 6–8, subulate to lanceolate-linear, 7–15(–17) mm long, 0.8–2(–3) mm wide. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx yellowish, smooth, narrowly to broadly tubular (2.1–)2.8–3.5(–4) cm long; 5-lobed, lobes deltate 0.5–1.5(–1.7) cm long, often accrescent in fruit, acute, stellate pubescent, veins obscure or prominent, sometimes with a gland on midrib of each lobe, lobes valvate in bud. Corolla actinomorphic to moderately zygomorphic, rotate to campanulate or tubular, corolla of 5 petals, red to orangish red, orange, or rarely yellow, sometimes with a red basal spot, linear–oblong to long–obovate, 4.5–7(–8.5) cm long, spreading to reflexed, lower surface usually densely pubescent, obovate, distinct from each other but adnate at base to staminal column, convolute in bud. Stamens 5 to numerous, monadelphous, forming a staminal column, staminal column spreading, 0.4-0.8 cm long; antheriferous for most of its length or only below the 5-toothed apex; filaments terminating the staminal column or borne below a 5-dentate apex; anthers monothecal. Pollen globose, echinate. Ovary superior, 5-celled or rarely appearing 10-celled by a vertical partition, the carpels borne in a single whorl or rarely seemingly superposed whorls, placentation axile; ovules 3 or more per cell; style exceeding the staminal column, 5- branched, branches spreading in a flat whorl, 0.7-1 cm long, usually pilose; stigmas discoid-fibriate, 1-2 mm in diameter.

Fruit: Loculicidally dehiscent capsules; pale brown; obovoid; 1.6–1.8 cm long; obscurely pubescent; exocarp and endocarp sometimes separating at maturity. Seeds dark brown; angular-reniform; 3-5 mm long; sparsely pubescent; with or without endosperm.

Ploidy: 2n = 82*; 84*

Habitat: Scattered populations from dry to wet forest.

Elevation Range: 70–890(–1,100) m.