Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Plant 2.4–5 m tall.

Stems: Stem 2–4 m tall x 2–10 cm diam.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades oblanceolate 18–23 cm long x 1.8–4.3 cm wide. Apex acute or acuminate. Base attenuate, cuneate, or obtuse. Surfaces glabrous or margin ciliate toward base. Margins subrevolute or merely thickened. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescence 1–1.5 m tall, unbranched or 5–7–branched, each branch 40–80–flowered; floral bracts 60–90 mm long x 6–10 mm wide, oblong or linear; pedicels 38–60 mm long; hypanthium 10–13 mm long x 11–18 mm diam. broadly campanulate, 1/8 as long as the corolla, pubescent. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 5-lobed, lobes 25–35 mm long x 5–9 mm wlde, narrowly triangular, 2–3 ½ times longer than the hypanthium, the margin entire and sometimes ciliate, the apex acuminate or acute and sometimes apiculate, sepals connate, tube adnate to ovary. Corolla zygomorphic, dorsally cleft almost to base, 78-103 mm long, white, glabrous; tube 28-44 mm long x 12-15 mm diam. at middle, slightly curved, 2.5-3 times longer than broad; dorsal lobes 45-70 mm long x 5-6 mm wide, half again as long as the tube, ventral lip 40-52 mm long x 22-26 mm wide. Stamens 5, alternate with corolla lobes; anthers with apical tufts of white hairs on all 5, 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; filament tube 68–82 mm long, 4.5–5 times longer than anther tube; anther tube 4.5–6 mm diam.; dorsal anthers 15–17 mm long; ventral anthers 11–13 mm long. Ovary inferior, 2-celled, often crowned with an annular nectary disk; ovule placentation axile, or when 1-celled with 2 parietal placentas; stigmas wet or dry, 2-lobed, 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: Loculicidal capsules; 33–36 mm long x 14–18 mm diam; dehiscent at apex by 2 valves. Seeds numerous; with a straight; short to spatulate dicotyledonous embryo embedded in oily endosperm; 2 mm long x 1.2 mm wide; chestnut-brown.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Known only from montane wet forest.

Elevation Range: 1740–1746 m. (‘Iao Valley, West Maui); 1280–1700 m. (northwestern slopes of Haleakalā)