Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs 1–2 m tall.

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

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, rarely in whorls of 3 per node, widely spaced, borne on upper 3–8 nodes. Those leaves at a node usually unequal, symmetrical or nearly so, elliptic to broadly elliptic or ovate, 7–36 cm long, 2.5–7(–12) cm wide. Apex acuminate. Base cuneate, occasionally blade abruptly constricted to an attenuate base. Upper surfaces very sparsely strigose to glabrate; lower surfaces moderately to densely puberulent along the veins, sparsely to moderately so elsewhere; blades thin, chartaceous. Margins entire to occasionally serrulate in upper 1⁄2, apex acuminate. Veins slightly raised on both surfaces. Petioles 1.2–7(–12) cm long, base sometimes clasping the stem or perfoliate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 1–5(–7) in often compound cymes arising in the leaf axils and occasionally also along stems, puberulent to pilose, the hairs dark brown, peduncles slender, 15–90 mm long, pedicels 4–13 mm long, bracts green, foliaceous, ovate to lanceolate, distinct or occasionally connate bracts, 16–66 mm long, tardily deciduous. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 2–5(6)-lobed, zygomorphic, fusiform in bud, tipped by a beak 3–4 mm long, in anthesis pale green, thin, 18–21 mm long, deciduous after anthesis, tube 16–19 mm long, glabrate to puberulent toward base, upper 3 lobes ca. 5 mm long, tardily separating, lower 2 lobes 8–10 mm long, deciduous or persistent in fruit. Corolla usually bilabiate, white, curved near middle, tube subcylindrical, 20–23 mm long, ca. 6 mm in diameter medially, glabrous, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, the lobes imbricate in bud, upper lobes broadly elliptic, 6–7 mm long, 8–9 mm wide, lower lobes broadly elliptic–ovate, 9–12 mm long, 10–11 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, glabrous, oblong–ovoid, 2-carpellate, 1-celled, placentation parietal, placentas 2, ± intruded, rarely joined in center and dividing ovary into 2 cells; ovules numerous, anatropous, apex rounded or with a stylar beak; style ca. 7 mm long, glabrous; stigma capitate, 2-lobed, lobes usually elliptic.

Fruit: Fruit a fleshy or firm berry; white; ellipsoid; 2–2.5 cm long; glabrous; often tipped by the persistent stylar beak. Seeds numerous; ellipsoid; minute; 0.3–0.4 mm long; the surface reticulate.

Ploidy: 2n = 34*

Habitat: Occurring in wet gulch bottoms and on lower slopes in disturbed mesic valleys and wet forest.

Elevation Range: (180–)300–540 m.