Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs 1–3 m tall.

Stems: Stems unbranched to few–branched, rounded to angular, pubescent with multicellular hairs or glabrate.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, borne on upper 5–10 nodes. Those leaves of a pair unequal, symmetrical, elliptic, 5–16 cm long, 1.8–5.2 cm wide. Apex acute. Base cuneate to attenuate. Upper surfaces glabrous to sparsely bullate hirsute; lower surfaces moderately to densely pale brownish puberulent; blades coriaceous; upper surfaces conspicuously rugose. Margins serrulate and often revolute. Upper surface principal veins strongly impressed. Petioles 1–5 cm long, base sometimes clasping the stem or perfoliate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 7–12 in subumbelliform, branched cymes arising in the leaf axils, sparsely puberulent, becoming glabrate, peduncles slender, 12–18 mm long, pedicels slender, 3–19 mm long, bracts lanceolate, distinct or occasionally connate, 3–10 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 2–5(6)-lobed, nearly actinomorphic, greenish white when fresh, 4–6 mm long, cleft 1⁄2–⅔ its length, the lobes narrowly deltate, sparsely puberulent, glabrous within , deciduous or persistent in fruit. Corolla usually bilabiate, white, tube cylindrical, straight or curved, 11–13 mm long, enlarging to 6–8 mm in diameter medially, densely appressed short–villous, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, the lobes imbricate in bud, upper lobes broadly rhombic, 3–4 mm long, 4–5 mm wide, lower lobes broadly rhombic–ovate, 4–5 mm long, 5–7 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 1–2 mm long, glabrous to sparsely puberulent; stigma capitate, 2-lobed, lobes usually elliptic.

Fruit: Fruit a fleshy or firm berry; white; ovoid; 1.5–1.7 cm long; glabrous; often tipped by the persistent stylar beak. Seeds numerous; ellipsoid; minute; 0.45–0.5 mm long; the surface reticulate.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Rare in disturbed mesic valleys.

Elevation Range: 490–610 m.