Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Probably scandent perennial herbs, woody toward the base.

Stems: Stems hirsute [hairs curved or somewhat crinkly, (0.6–)0.8–1.3 mm long].

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades ovate to ovate–elliptic, ca. 10.5–20 cm long, ca.4–11 cm wide. Apex short-acuminate. Base subcordate. Surfaces hirsute, more densely so along veins on lower surface, also glandular–dotted; blades thin. Margins crenate. Petioles ca. 4–10 cm long, hirsute. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 4–6 per verticillaster, in usually leafy, compound, racemose inflorescences arising in the upper leaf axils, consisting of 1 short lateral branch with a pair of leaves at the base, or occasionally 2 additional smaller lateral branches, pedicels 9–11 mm long, bracts ovate, ca. 4–6 mm long, pubescence same as that of leaves. Calyx broadly obconical, ca. 5 mm long, enlarging in fruit, hirsute and sparsely to moderately glandular–dotted, usually 5-toothed, the teeth linear–deltate, ca. 2.5 mm long, apex attenuate to acute, splitting longitudinally, usually persistent or sometimes only ventral 1/2 persistent. Corolla bilabiate, tube narrowly funnelform, ca. 10 mm long, upper lobe ca. 2 mm long, lower lobe unknown; nectary disk often present at base of ovary, annular or developed on anterior side only. Stamens 4, both pairs of similar length or upper pair slightly longer, ascending the upper corolla lip, included, aligned with the sinuses; filaments inserted near throat, usually pubescent; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits; anther sacs divaricate. Ovary superior, 2-carpellate; ovules 1 per ovary lobe, placentation basal-axile; style 1, included, arising between lobes, shortly 2-lobed, the lobes clavate; stigmatic only at apex, 1 lobe often rudimentary; stigmas 2.

Fruit: Nutlets ca. 2 mm long; 1-seeded; dark green to black; drupaceous; exocarp fleshy; obovoid; margins slightly winged; obliquely attached at the connate base; spreading and exserted from calyx at maturity. Seeds with endosperm absent or scanty and oily.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Presumably in diverse mesic forest to wet forest.

Elevation Range: