Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennial herbs.

Stems:

Roots: Stout rhizomes up to 10 cm long.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Leaves basal. Blades elliptic to elliptic–oblanceolate, 4–35 cm long, 1–7.5 cm wide, blades undifferentiated from petioles. Surfaces sparsely to moderately pilose, especially along veins. Margins remotely denticulate. Usually 5–7-veined. Petioles winged 0.5–15 cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in scapes 10–50(–100) cm long; spikes 3–50 cm long, moderately pilose, flowers crowded, less so toward base. bracts often purple–tipped, narrowly deltate, 1.64.5 mm long, outer surface ciliate and pilose, bracteoles absent. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx of 4 sepals, unequal, anterior ones connate at base, elliptic, (1.7–)2–3 mm long, posterior ones distinct, ovate. Corolla salverform, 4-lobed, scarious, persistent in fruit, the tube covering the upper part of the capsule, lobes erect and coherent, 1.7–3.4 mm long. Stamens 4, alternate with the corolla tubes; filaments adnate to corolla tube; anthers long–exserted, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, 2-carpellate, with as many cells; ovules 3, placentation axile, ; style 1, terminal, slender.

Fruit: Capsules ellipsoid; 2.7–3.2 mm long; dehiscent at or slightly below middle; circumscissile at or below the middle; enclosed in the persistent calyx. Seeds 3; dull black; ellipsoid; compressed; 1.2–2.2 mm long; with well–developed; firm; translucent endosperm.

Ploidy: 2n = 24; 48

Habitat: Open; disturbed areas and wet forest.

Elevation Range: 820–1,900 m.