Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Shrub, 1.8 m tall.
Stems:
Stem glabrous.
Roots:
Leaves:
Leaves simple.
Alternate.
Blades oblanceolate, 38.5–40.5 cm long, 11.5 cm wide.
Apex acute.
Base cuneate.
Surfaces glabrous; upper surface green; lower surface pale green.
Margins minutely denticulate.
Petioles 7.8–8.5 cm long, 4 mm diam., glabrous.
Stipules absent.
Flowers:
Flowers in inflorescence 11–20–flowered, densely short–pubescent; peduncle deflexed, 8–9 cm long, 5–7 mm diam.; rachis 2.5–4 cm long; bracts linear or narrowly triangular, 3 mm long, 1 mm wide, the apex acute.
Flowers bisexual (perfect); pedicels 10–17 mm long, bibracteolate in the lower ⅓; bracteoles linear or narrowly triangular, 2 mm long. Hypanthium obovoid, deeply 10–sulcate, 10–11 mm long, 11–12 mm diam., densely short–pubescent.
Calyx lobes triangular, 4–5 mm long, 3 mm wide; apex acute.
Corolla bilabiate, 46–47 mm long, purple with lighter longitudinal stripes, short–pubescent; tube curved, 19 mm long, 7 mm diam, cleft dorsally for ⅔ its length; dorsal lobes linear, 32 mm long, 3 mm wide, spreading horizontally; ventral lip 19 mm long, cut to its middle into three linear lobes 3–4 mm wide (the middle one a little wider than the others) and acute at apex.
Stamens 5, alternate with corolla lobes, connate; staminal column slightly exserted, glabrous; filaments 35 mm long; anther tube 9 mm long, 3 mm diam., the lower 2 anthers with tufts of white hairs at apex.
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 (immature) subglobose; 12 mm long; 14 mm diam.; purple; deeply 10–sulcate; crowned by the persistent calyx lobes.
Seeds unknown.
Ploidy:
Habitat:
Growing in wet forest.
Elevation Range:
ca. 213 m.