Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Sparingly branched shrubs 2–4 m tall.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades oblanceolate to oblong, blades 18–32 cm long, 3–9 cm wide. Apex obtuse or acute. Base obtuse to cuneate. Upper surfaces green, glabrous or sparsely pubescent; lower surfaces pale green, pubescent. Margins callose–serrate. Petioles 4–12 cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences 7–12–flowered, axillary, peduncles 20–40 mm long, pedicels 5–20 mm long; hypanthium purple, broadly obovoid, 4-5 mm long, 3-4 mm wide. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 5-lobed, lobes dentiform, 0.5–1 mm long, apex acute to acuminate, tube adnate to ovary. Corolla zygomorphic, white, sometimes slightly tinged pale purplish, 30–40 mm long, 3–4 mm wide, sparsely pubescent or rarely subglabrous, the tube suberect to gently curved, the lobes spreading. 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 purple; globose; 8–10 mm long. 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: Occurring on shaded slopes and gulches in mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 580–730 m.