Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small shrubs 0.5–2 m tall.

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

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Leaves few, opposite, borne usually on upper 1–2(3) nodes. Those leaves of a pair subequal, symmetrical or nearly so, cordate, 6–15 cm long, 3.5–7.5 cm wide, thick and rather fleshy. Apex acuminate. Surfaces densely velvety villous, the hairs pale, becoming rust–colored when leaves dry. Margins serrate to denticulate. Petioles 2.4–6.5 cm long, base sometimes clasping the stem or perfoliate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 1–5 in umbelliform cymes arising in the leaf axils, densely villous throughout, peduncles stout, 6–30 mm long, pedicels stout, 18–30 mm long, bracts foliaceous, distinct or occasionally connate, lanceolate, 10–15 mm long, caducous. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 2–5(6)-lobed, actinomorphic or nearly so, pale green, 12–15 mm long, cleft unequally ca. 1⁄2–⅔ its length, the lobes lanceolate, densely villous, glabrous within, apex acuminate, deciduous or persistent in fruit. Corolla usually bilabiate, green(?), tube cylindrical, flaring slightly at mouth, slightly curved, 17–22 mm long, ca. 8–9 mm in diameter medially, densely white villous, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, the lobes imbricate in bud, upper lobes broadly ovate–deltate, ca. 3 mm long, ca. 7 mm wide, lower lobes very broadly ovate, 4–6 mm long, ca. 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 3–4 mm long, glabrous; stigma capitate, 2-lobed, lobes usually elliptic.

Fruit: Fruit a fleshy or firm berry; white; ovoid; more than 1.3 cm long; glabrous; often tipped by the persistent stylar beak. Seeds unknown.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Known only from scattered wind–blown ridgetops in cloud-covered wet forest; along mountain crests.

Elevation Range: 700–830 m.