Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs or sometimes small trees 1–7 m tall, covered with stellate and often glandular hairs.

Stems: Stems densely appressed pubescent when young.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, becoming alternate above. Blades oblong to ovate or lanceolate, 4–30 cm long, 0.7–7 cm wide. Surfaces usually glabrous, occasionally densely pubescent. Margins remotely serrate–dentate to subentire. Petioles 0.7–1 cm long, connected by an inconspicuous stipular line. Stipules rare, leafy or perfoliate when present.

Flowers: Flowers in terminal and axillary, thyrsoid or spiciform cymes. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx campanulate, 2–4.5 mm long, cleft ⅓–½ its length, ± densely tomentose. Corolla white, sometimes pale purple or greenish, 3.5–6 mm long, the lobes 1–1.5 mm long, stellate pubescent externally and wooly pubescent in the tube. Stamens 4, adnate to corolla tube, included, rarely exserted, equal; filaments glabrous, staminode 0. Ovary superior, ovoid to narrowly ovoid, 1--1.5 x 0.8--1 mm, glabrous or scaly. Style short; stigma capitate.

Fruit: Septicidal capsules; 2-valved; dry; dehiscent; ovoid to oblong–ovoid; somewhat flattened; 3–5 mm long. Seeds ellipsoid; ca. 1 mm long; both ends with a short wing.

Ploidy: 2n = 30; 38

Habitat: Naturalized in mesic to wet; primarily disturbed areas; on lava and cinder; and in wet forest.

Elevation Range: 100–1,200 m.