Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Palm-like trees 3–8 m tall, with tan latex.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades oblanceolate to narrowly oblong, blades 50–80 cm long, 8–14 cm wide. Apex acute. Upper surfaces glabrous or sparsely pubescent; lower surfaces pubescent at least along the midrib and veins. Margins minutely callose–denticulate. Sessile. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences 5–10–flowered, axillary, peduncles 15–30 mm long, pedicels 5–12 mm long; hypanthium obconical to obovoid, 12–30 mm long, 6–12 mm wide. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 5-lobed, lobes narrowly oblong, 12–45 mm long, 3–6 mm wide, apex obtuse and apiculate, tube adnate to ovary. Corolla zygomatic, magenta, 60–80 mm long, 6–11 mm wide, glabrous, the tube suberect to slightly curved, the lobes connate, ¼–1⁄2 as long as the tube, all curved downward in the same plane, the corolla thus appearing unilabiate. Stamens 5, alternate with corolla lobes, connate; staminal column glabrous or pubescent at base; 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 purplish red; ellipsoid to obovoid; 30–45 mm long; 20–27 mm wide; 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: Occurring in wet forest.

Elevation Range: 1,200–1,740 m.