Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Diffuse, scandent or drooping shrubs.

Stems: Stems to 10–40 dm long, internodes with a sharp longitudinal ridge.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, widely spaced. Blades broadly ovate, elliptic, broadly elliptic, or rarely broadly ovate–cordate, 6–10 cm long, 2.5–7 cm wide. Apex acuminate to caudate. Base cuneate to rounded, occasionally somewhat cordate. Lower surfaces sparsely hirtellous, especially on veins; blades chartaceous. Margins entire. Lateral veins ascending, slightly raised on lower surface, higher order venation conspicuously reticulate. Petioles 0.4–0.7 cm long, bases slightly connate below stipules. Stipules deltate, sharply carinate,3–4 mm long, adnate to inner side of petiole base, apex with a mucro 0.6–1.5 mm long.

Flowers: Flowers in compound, thyrsoid, terminal panicles up to 30 cm long, lateral branches abortive at first node of inflorescence or flowering late, ultimate branches terminating in open cymes, inflorescences sparsely to moderately hirtellous throughout; pedicels ca. 1–2 mm long, glabrous to sparsely hirtellous; hypanthium urceolate-turbinate 1-1.2 mm long, sparsely hirtellous. Flowers bisexual (perfect) and pistillate; insect-pollinated. Calyx 4–5 lobed, lobes oblong, ca. 1 mm long, ca. 0.3–0.5 mm wide, apex obtuse. Corolla green, the tube reddish purple, fleshy, salverform, the tube 7–9 mm long, the limb strongly quadrangular in bud, apex not depressed, 4-5-lobed, the lobes 3–5 mm long, valvate in bud, spreading to reflexed, margins reflexed, apex with well–developed linear appendages up to 1.5 mm long; nectary disc present. Stamens as many as and alternate with the corolla lobes, inserted just below corolla lobe sinuses; anthers sessile or on short filaments, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary inferior or partly so, 2(-4)-locular; ovules few to numerous on fleshy placentas near middle of septum; style as many as carpels, cylindrical to filiform, terminal, slender, densely hirsute in lower 1/3, 2-lobed in upper 1/2; stigma bilobed or subcapitate, included or exserted.

Fruit: Capsules subglobose; slightly compressed; 2.8–3.3 mm long; 3.5–4 mm in diameter; dehiscing loculicidally across disk; later separating to ca. ½ to base; not or very tardily separating septicidally; endocarp sclerified; disk nearly flat or slightly depressed; with a groove along the septum; short–hirtellous. Seeds dull dark brown; irregularly cuneiform or subpeltate; minutely rugulose–pitted; with well-developed oily endosperm; or endosperm occasionally scanty or absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occuring in mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 610–1100 m.