Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs 1–4 m tall.

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

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, borne on upper 3–6 nodes. Those leaves of a pair unequal to subequal, asymmetrical, broadly elliptic, elliptic, or ovate, (6.8–)10–25(–36) cm long, 5–10(–14) cm wide. Apex acute to acuminate. Base cuneate to attenuate. Upper surfaces sparsely hirtellous; lower surfaces moderately to densely velvety short–pilose, sometimes only along veins, blades chartaceous. Margins serrate or serrulate. Petioles (1.7–)3–8(–11.5) cm long, base sometimes clasping the stem or perfoliate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 3–12 in branched cymes arising in the leaf axils, short–pilose throughout, peduncles stout, (15–)25–82 mm long, pedicels 10–18 mm long, elongating to 15–25(–32) mm long in fruit, bracts narrowly lanceolate or occasionally oblanceolate, foliaceous, distinct or occasionally connate bracts, (4–)7–15 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx nearly actinomorphic, 2–5(6)-lobed, greenish white to white when fresh, 6–10(–14) mm long, cleft ca. 1⁄2 its length, some of the lobes slightly longer, up to ca. ⅘ Calyx length, the lobes narrowly deltate to narrowly ovate, densely short–pilose, glabrous or puberulent in upper ⅔ within, deciduous or persistent in fruit. Corolla usually bilabiate, white, tube subcylindrical, flaring slightly at mouth,the tube straight or curved, 7–14 mm long, enlarging to ca. 3–7 mm in diameter medially, moderately to densely pilose, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, the lobes imbricate in bud, upper lobes reniform, 1–2.5 mm long, ca. 4 mm wide, lower lobes reniform–orbicular, ca. 3–4 mm long, ca. 3.5–5 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, pubescent or glabrous, apex rounded or with a stylar beak, glabrous to sparsely puberulent, more densely so after anthesis; style 0.5–2.5 mm long, glabrous to sparsely puberulent; stigma capitate, 2-lobed, lobes usually elliptic.

Fruit: Fruit a fleshy or firm berry; white; ovoid; 1.2–1.7 cm long; puberulent; often tipped by the persistent stylar beak. Seeds numerous; ellipsoid; minute; 0.3–0.4 mm long; the surface reticulate.

Ploidy: 2n = 34*

Habitat: Occurring in moist; shaded gulch–bottoms and on slopes in disturbed mesic valleys; occasionally in wet forest.

Elevation Range: (180–)300–850 m.