Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrub, 0.9–2 m tall.

Stems: stem unbranched (occasionally with 1 or 2 branches from base), 1–2.5 cm diam., erect, unarmed, dark purple and pubescent toward apex, brown and glabrous below, latex light yellow (occasionally white), thin.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades broadly elliptic, ovate, or broadly oblong, 16–40 cm long, 9.5–19.5 cm wide. Apex obtuse, acute, acuminate, or cuspidate. Base subcordate, truncate, rounded, or obtuse. Upper surfaces green, glossy, glabrous, the midrib maroon or dark purple at least in the lower ⅓; lower surfaces whitish green, glossy, with scattered short white hairs on the midrib and veins. Margins minutely callose–denticulate. Petioles 8–20 cm long, 2–5 mm diam., maroon or dark purple, glabrous or pubescent with short white hairs. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescence ascending, 6–13–flowered, pubescent with short white hairs; peduncle 4–8 cm long, 2–4 mm diam., maroon or dark purple; rachis 0.5–2 cm long, maroon or dark purple; bracts linear, 3 mm long, 0.6 mm wide, deciduous. Flowers bisexual (perfect); pedicels 10–21 mm long, bibracteolate at or below the middle, maroon or dark purple; bracteoles linear, 1–3 mm long. Hypanthium obovoid or obconic, 9–12 mm long, 5–9 mm diam., dark purple, pubescent with short white hairs. Calyx lobes triangular or narrowly triangular, spreading or ascending, 4–6 mm long, 1–2 mm wide, dark maroon; apex acute. Corolla bilabiate, 40–53 mm long, dark purple, shading to purplish white at the apex of the lobes on their inner surface, densely pubescent with short white hairs; tube curved, 30–31 mm long, 5–5.5 mm diam, cleft dorsally for ca. 1⁄2 its length; dorsal lobes linear, spreading and slightly recurved, 19–22 mm long, 2–2.5 mm wide, acute at apex; ventral lobes linear, spreading and slightly recurved, 15–20 mm long, 2–2.5 mm wide, acute at apex. Stamens 5, alternate with corolla lobes, connate; Staminal column slightly exserted; filaments 32–40 mm long, purplish white, glabrous; anther tube 10–11 mm long, 2 mm diam., purplish white, the lower 2 anthers with tufts of white hairs at apex, otherwise glabrous. 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 spherical; 10–13 mm long; 10–13 mm diam.; maroon or dark purple with orange flesh; tuberculate. Seeds numerous; minute; black or dark brown; smooth; shining.

Ploidy: 2n = 28

Habitat: The plants occur on wet seeping or saturated rocky substrates in areas of rainforest and shrubland.

Elevation Range: 370–770 m.