Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs 0.5–1 m tall.

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

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Leaves in whorls of 3 per node, well-spaced, borne on upper 3–9 nodes. Those leaves at a node subequal, symmetrical, oblanceolate, 8–20 cm long, 2–6.4 cm wide. Apex acuminate. Base (lower half of blade) oblong, usually auriculate. Upper surfaces sparsely appressed pilose along midrib when young, otherwise glabrous; lower surfaces sparsely appressed pilose along veins; blades thick, chartaceous. Margins subentire or occasionally serrulate to crenate in upper 1⁄2. Sessile, base sometimes clasping the stem or perfoliate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 3–8 in cymes arising in the leaf axils, appressed to spreading brown pilose throughout, peduncles 1–7 mm long, pedicels 3–10 mm long, bracts narrowly lanceolate to linear, distinct or occasionally connate, 4–9 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 2–5(6)-lobed, zygomorphic, broadly fusiform in bud, tipped by a beak 2–3 mm long, in anthesis pale green, chartaceous, 14–27 mm long, tube 13–18 mm long, glabrous except sparsely pilose toward base, upper 3 lobes 9–11 mm long, lower 2 lobes ca. 7–9 mm long, all lobes separating by anthesis. Corolla usually bilabiate, white, tube narrowly funnelform, curved near middle, 15–24 mm long, 5–7 mm in diameter medially, glabrous, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, the lobes imbricate in bud, upper lobes suborbicular, 3–4.5 mm long, 3–4 mm wide, lower lobes broadly elliptic, 4–10 mm long, ca. 3–8 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, oblong–ovoid, 2-carpellate, 1-celled, placentation parietal, placentas 2, ± intruded, rarely joined in center and dividing ovary into 2 cells; ovules numerous, anatropous, glabrous ,apex rounded or with a stylar beak; style ca. 6–7 mm long, glabrous; stigma capitate, 2-lobed, lobes usually elliptic.

Fruit: Fruit a fleshy or firm berry; white; ellipsoid; ca. 1.4–1.6 cm long; glabrous; often tipped by the persistent stylar beak. Seeds numerous; ellipsoid; minute; 0.4–0.5 mm long; the surface reticulate.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Known only from a few collections made in wet gulch–bottoms and on slopes in mesic valleys and wet forest.

Elevation Range: 480–610 m.