Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Scandent vines.

Stems: Stems many-branched, densely to moderately retrorsely villous to retrorsely strigose, also usually sparsely glandular–dotted.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades narrowly deltate to narrowly ovate–deltate, 2–5.5 cm long, 0.7–2.3 cm wide. Apex acute. Base subcordate to occasionally truncate. Surfaces sparsely to moderately short–villous, some hairs slightly longer, and inconspicuously glandular–dotted; thin, apparently somewhat flaccid. Margins very coarsely and somewhat irregularly crenate–serrate. Petioles 0.5–2 cm long, moderately villous, occasionally densely so. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers (4)6 per verticillaster, in unbranched, terminal, racemose inflorescences ca. 4–15 cm long, sometimes most branches flowering, pedicels 1–3 mm long, short–hirtellous, bracts ovate to ovate–deltate, 5–10 mm long, lowermost pair larger, 10–15 mm long. Calyx campanulate, 2–3 mm long, enlarging in fruit, short–hirtellous (a few hairs gland–tipped), sparsely glandular–dotted, lobes ovate to oblong–ovate, 0.5–1 mm long, apex obtuse to rounded, rarely with 1–2 small crenations near apex, usually 5-toothed, splitting longitudinally, usually persistent or sometimes only ventral 1/2 persistent. Corolla bilabiate, probably white, tube narrowly funnelform, slightly curved, ca. 7–8 mm long, puberulent, upper lip ca. 1.5–2 mm long, entire or 2-lobed, flat or concave, lower lip ca. 3–4 mm long, 3-lobed, lateral lobes ovate, slightly asymmetrical, lower lobe broadly ovate to suborbicular, slightly folded to form a groove, margins somewhat undulate, apex emarginate or entire; 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. 2–2.5 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: Very rare in wet forest.

Elevation Range: 1,010–1,525 m.