Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Herbs or subshrubs up to 1 m tall.

Stems: Young branches quadrate, densely covered with spreading, simple, usually gland–tipped hairs.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, decussate. Blades ovate to oblong–ovate, 3–7.5 cm long, 1.3–3.5 cm wide. Apex acute. Base rounded. Surfaces moderately strigose, the hairs on upper surfaces adnate part of their length to the leaf surface. Margins serrulate. 5(–7)-veined with lateral primary veins confluent for 2–4 mm at base of blade. Petioles 3–10 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in cymes, inflorescences 10–20 cm long (incl. peduncle), bracts and bracteoles elliptic to broadly ovate, 1–3.5 mm long, 1–2 mm wide at base, tardily deciduous, ciliolate. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Hypanthium covered with spreading, simple, gland–tipped hairs; fruiting hypanthium 4–5 mm long, 3.5–5 mm wide. Calyx lobes erect, deltate to ovate, 2–3 mm long, 1–2 mm wide at base, ciliolate. Corolla of 4 petals, obovate, pink, 6–11 mm long, 5–6 mm wide. Stamens twice as many as petals, dimorphic; anthers linear–subulate, with a ventrally inclined pore, connective prolonged below anther sacs and modified ventrally into a 2-lobed appendage at filament insertion, larger anthers yellow, 2.5–4 mm long, with prolonged connective and appendage collectively ca. 0.5 mm long, smaller anthers 2–3 mm long, with shorter connective and appendage but otherwise as in larger anthers. Ovary inferior, distinct, 4–5-celled, pubescent at the apex, placentation axile; ovules numerous; style simple; stigma terminal.

Fruit: Capsules fully enclosed by the hypanthium. Seeds cochleate; minutely tuberculate; 0.25–0.5 mm long; endosperm absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Disturbed mesic to wet forest.

Elevation Range: