Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs, 1.5–3 m tall.

Stems: Stems branched from base, ca. 1.3 cm diameter.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple (occasionally appearing compound with basal leaflets or segments). Alternate. Blades elliptic, 36–55 cm long, 19–27 cm wide across the segments, 0.4–4.5 cm wide between the segments. Apex acuminate, apiculate. Upper surfaces green, glabrous; lower surfaces light green, glabrous. Margins pinnately cleft or parted toward apex, pinnately compound toward base; segments narrowly oblong or narrowly triangular, 8–15 x 1.8–5 cm, 9 or 10 per side, separated by sinuses, the margin callose–serrate or shallowly lobed (the lobes shallowly deltate or shallowly triangular, 5–12 x 6–17 mm, acuminate and apiculate at apex). Petioles 12–21 cm long, 3.54 mm diam. ⅓–1⁄2 as long as the lamina, glabrous, muricate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in racemes 6– to 15–flowered, axillary; peduncle ascending, 35–55 mm long, 2.2–4 mm diam. glabrous, sparsely muriculate; rachis 14–25 mm long, glabrous; bracts linear or lanceolate, 14–25 x 2.5–4 mm, subtending the pedicels, sometimes a few empty ones on the peduncle, long persistent, acuminate at apex; pedicels ascending, 33–36 mm long, 1.2–1.3 mm diam. ebracteolate, glabrous; hypanthium obconic, 10–15 mm long, 7–9 mm diam. 1/6 as long as the corolla, glabrous, the base attenuate. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 5-lobed, lobes ovate, lanceolate, or oblong, 36–44 x 7–13 mm, distinct, overlapping at base, erect from base, glabrous, the margin entire, acuminate and apiculate at apex, tube adnate to ovary. Corolla zygomorphic, yellowish white, longitudinally striped with purple, 65–70 mm long, glabrous; corolla tube laterally compressed, 35 mm long, corsally cleft to about the middle; dorsal corolla lobes 32 mm long. Stamens 5, alternate with corolla lobes, connate; filament tube 55 mm long, 1 mm diam. glabrous; anther tube suberect, 2.8–3.2 mm diam. all 5 anthers with tufts of hairs 4–5 mm long at apex, the surfaces glabrous; dorsal anthers 9.5–12 mm long, 1/5–¼ as long as the filament tube; ventral anthers 8–9 mm long; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits, coherent but separating after anthesis or connate and forming a tube into which pollen is shed; filaments distinct or connate above, attached to the epigynous nectary disk or to base of corolla, rarely adnate to corolla tube. Ovary inferior, 2-celled; ovule placentation axile; stigma 2-lobed, wet or dry, appressed and nonreceptive as the style grows through the anther tube, pushing out the pollen, after which the stigmas spread apart and become receptive.

Fruit: Mature fruit and seeds not seen. Seeds: mature seeds not seen.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Mesic forest.

Elevation Range: ca. 450 m.