Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs 1.5–5 m tall.

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

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, borne on upper 3–5 node. Those of a pair somewhat unequal, symmetrical to slightly asymmetrical, very broadly elliptic to suborbicular or broadly ovate to ovate, 9–33 cm long, (3–)6–17 cm wide. Apex acute to acuminate. Base cuneate to truncate or subcordate. Upper surfaces sparsely hirtellous; lower surfaces sparsely to occasionally moderately velvety short–pilose, blades chartaceous. Margins coarsely and irregularly serrate or dentate. Petioles 2.5–17 cm long, base sometimes clasping the stem or perfoliate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 3–9 in open subumbelliform cymes arising in the leaf axils, short–pilose to sometimes shaggy pilose throughout, peduncles 25–50 mm long, pedicels 15–33 mm long, bracts usually foliaceous and asymmetrical, lanceolate to ovate or sometimes oblanceolate, 12–30 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 2–5(6)-lobed, nearly actinomorphic, white to green, 9–20 mm long, cleft nearly to base, the lobes narrowly lanceolate to narrowly elliptic–lanceolate, spreading to reflexed in fruit, both surfaces densely short–villous, apex acute to long–acuminate, deciduous or persistent in fruit. Corolla usually bilabiate, white, tube cylindrical, straight or curved, 12–25 mm long, 4–9 mm in diameter, densely white villous, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, the lobes imbricate in bud, upper lobes reniform–orbicular, 2–6 mm long, 3–7 mm wide, lower lobes reniform–orbicular, 3–7 mm long, 4–9 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, densely to moderately villous throughout or sometimes only in upper 1⁄2, apex rounded or with a stylar beak; style ca. 1–4 mm long, sparsely to densely pilose; stigma capitate, 2-lobed, lobes usually elliptic.

Fruit: Berries fleshy or firm; white; ovoid; 1–2.6 cm long; densely pilose; often tipped by the persistent stylar beak. Seeds numerous; ellipsoid; minute; ca. 0.5 mm long; the surface reticulate.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring in moist; shaded gulch–bottoms in mesic valleys.

Elevation Range: 300–610 m.