Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs 3–5 m tall.

Stems: Stems few–branched, rounded to angular, pubescent with multicellular hairs or glabrate.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite or in whorls of 3 per node, borne on upper 3–6 nodes. Those leaves at a node slightly unequal, symmetrical, elliptic, 15–32.5 cm long, 3.2–9.6 cm wide. Apex acuminate. Base cuneate. Upper surfaces very sparsely hirtellous; lower surfaces appressed short–pilose on veins, otherwise glabrate to sparsely appressed short–pilose throughout; blades thick, chartaceous. Margins serrate. Petioles 3.8–9.8 cm long, base sometimes clasping the stem or perfoliate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers (1–)3–5 in open cymes arising in the leaf axils, moderately to densely appressed brown pilose, peduncles stout, 6–20 mm long, pedicels 20–25 mm long, elongating up to 35 mm long in fruit, bracts foliaceous, elliptic. distinct or occasionally connate, 18–40 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 2–5(6)-lobed, nearly actinomorphic, pale green when fresh, thick, 18–25 mm long, cleft nearly to base, the lobes foliaceous, ovate, sparsely brown pilose, glabrous within, margins revolute and ± undulate, apex acute to acuminate, deciduous or persistent in fruit. Corolla usually bilabiate, white, tube subcylindrical, ca. 15–18 mm long, ca. 5–6 mm in diameter medially, the tube straight or curved, pilose, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, the lobes imbricate in bud, upper lobes broadly elliptic, ca. 3–6 mm long, 6–7 mm wide, lower lobes broadly elliptic, ca. 8–9 mm long, ca. 6–9 mm wide. Stamens 5, inserted about halfway up corolla tube, the 2 upper Stamens fertile, others staminodial, +/– with abortive anthers; fertile anthers coherent positioned in throat of corolla tube, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits or occasionally by apical pores. Ovary superior, oblong–ovoid, 2-carpellate, 1-celled, placentation parietal, placentas 2, ± intruded, rarely joined in center and dividing ovary into 2 cells; ovules numerous, anatropous, glabrous, apex rounded or with a stylar beak; style ca. 2–3 mm long, glabrous; stigma capitate, 2-lobed, lobes usually elliptic.

Fruit: Fruit a fleshy or firm berry; white; ellipsoid; ca. 1.6–1.8 cm long; often tipped by the persistent stylar beak. Seeds unknown.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Known only from wet forest.

Elevation Range: 950–1,430 m.