Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Suberect perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems moderately short–hirtellous, the trichomes spreading, usually somewhat antrorsely so.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades ovate to occasionally elliptic–ovate, up to 8–14 cm long, 3–4.5(–7.5) cm wide. Apex acute to short-acuminate. Base subcordate or occasionally truncate. Lower surfaces glandular–dotted and short–hirtellous, densely so along veins, the trichomes erect to somewhat crinkly, 0.2–0.3 mm long. Margins evenly crenate. Petioles 2.5–3.2(–4.5) cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 6–12 per verticillaster, in relatively narrow, usually simple, terminal, bracteate, inflorescences 7–12 cm long, pubescent with spreading to erect trichomes usually 0.1–0.2 mm long, pedicels 0.6–1.8 mm long. Calyx 3.2–3.6 mm long, enlarging in fruit, short-hispidulous, more densely so toward the apex, and inconspicuously glandular–dotted, usually 5-toothed, the teeth linear–deltate, 0.7–1.6 mm long, apex acute, splitting longitudinally, usually persistent or sometimes only ventral 1/2 persistent. Corolla bilabiate, white, tube slender, slightly curved, 7.3–10 mm long, short–villous, the trichomes somewhat appressed, and inconspicuously glandular–dotted, lower lip 3.5–5.5 long; nectary disk often present at base of ovary, annular or developed on anterior side only. Stamens 4, both pairs of similar length or upper pair slightly longer, ascending the upper corolla lip, included, aligned with the sinuses; filaments inserted near throat, usually pubescent; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits; anther sacs divaricate. Ovary superior, 2-carpellate; ovules 1 per ovary lobe, placentation basal-axile; style 1, included, arising between lobes, shortly 2-lobed, the lobes clavate; stigmatic only at apex, 1 lobe often rudimentary; stigmas 2.

Fruit: Nutlets ca. 2–3 mm long; 1-seeded; dark green to black; drupaceous; exocarp fleshy; obovoid; margins slightly winged; obliquely attached at the connate base; spreading and exserted from calyx at maturity. Seeds with endosperm absent or scanty and oily.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: