Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Fleshy herbs.

Stems: Stems reddish purple, erect to ascending from a repent base, 10–30 cm long, ca.5–7 mm in diameter toward base, branched or sometimes unbranched, internodes 2–4(–8) cm long, densely hirsute, the hairs spreading, ca. 0.6–0.8 mm long.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Whorled (2)3–4(–8) per node. Blades ovate to elliptic–ovate, elliptic, or sometimes some of them suborbicular, 2–2.5(–4) cm long, 1–1.5(–2) cm wide. Apex bluntly acute to obtuse. Base rounded to cuneate. Surfaces sparsely hirsute to glabrate; lower surfaces moderately hirsute, especially toward base and along veins; upper surfaces medium green; lower surfaces pale green, relatively thick and firm–fleshy, drying coriaceous. Margins flat to slightly revolute, entire. Pinnately 5-veined or palmately 3-veined, upper surface with principal veins conspicuously impressed, veins usually red at least toward base. Petioles 0.5–1(–1.5) cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in fleshy spikes usually several, terminal or axillary in the uppermost leaves, 1.5–3(–3.8) cm long, the rachis 1.5–2.5 mm in diameter, glabrous, flowers moderately congested, peduncles 0.5–1 cm long, hirsute. Flowers bisexual (perfect), perianth absent. Each flower subtended by a peltate bract. Calyx (sepals) absent. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 2. Ovary superior, broadly ellipsoid, 1-carpellate, 1-celled, apex slightly oblique; ovules 1 per cell, orthotropous, erect; stigmas terminal or slightly subterminal.

Fruit: Fruit broadly ellipsoid–obovoid; ca. 1 mm long; papillose–viscid with sessile glands. Seeds 1 per fruit; with scanty endosperm and copious; starchy perisperm.

Ploidy: 2n = 44

Habitat: Wet forests.

Elevation Range: 670–1,000 m.