Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Branched shrubs, height unknown.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades dimorphic juveniles pinnately cleft, parted, or divided, blades 20–46 cm long, 10–20 cm wide (across the segments), segments 5–8 per side; adults elliptic to oblanceolate, blades 23–36 cm long, 7–12 cm wide. Apex acuminate (juveniles and adults). Base of juvenile leaves truncate or obtuse; base of adult leaves obtuse to cuneate. Juveniles: upper surfaces green, glabrous; lower surfaces pale green, glabrous or sparsely pubescent, both surfaces often aculeate on the midrib and veins; Adults: upper surfaces green, glabrous; lower surfaces pale green, glabrous or sparsely pubescent. Margins (in juvenile plants) callose–denticulate to callose–dentate; adults margins callose–denticulate to irregularly lobed. Juveniles: petioles 9–15 cm long, aculeate; Adults: petioles 4–11 cm long, smooth or sparsely aculeate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences 6–8–flowered, axillarty, peduncles 20–55 mm long, pedicels 12–25 mm long; hypanthium obconical, 7–10 mm long, 4–5 mm wide. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 5-lobed, lobes triangular or narrowly oblong, 2–8 mm long, 1–2 mm wide, distinct or rarely connate, apex acute to acuminate, tube adnate to ovary. Corolla zygomorphic, white, often tinged pale lilac, 50–60 mm long, 8–9 mm wide, glabrous, the tube curved, dorsally cleft to about the middle, the lobes spreading, ¼–⅓ as long as the tube, sparsely muricate. Stamens 5, alternate with corolla lobes, connate; staminal column glabrous; anthers glabrous, the lower 2 with apical tufts of white hairs, 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: Berries yellowish orange; ellipsoid; 10–15 mm long; crowned by the persistent calyx lobes. Seeds numerous; small; brown to black; smooth; shiny; 0.2–0.5(–2) mm long; with a straight; short to spatulate dicotyledonous embryo embedded in oily endosperm.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Formerly occurring in wet forest.

Elevation Range: