Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Palm-like trees 1–7 m tall.

Stems: Stems unbranched.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades oblanceolate to oblong or elliptic, blades 20–80 cm long, 6.5–20 cm wide. Apex acute to obtuse, rarely acuminate. Base cuneate, obtuse, or rounded. Upper surfaces glabrous or sparsely pubescent; lower surfaces pubescent. Margins callose–denticulate, rarely erose–dentate. Petioles 3–17 cm long, often muricate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences 5–15–flowered, clustered among the leaves, peduncles 10–80 mm long, pedicels 10–25 mm long; hypanthium obconical, 10–20 mm long, 5–10 mm wide. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 5-lobed, lobes oblong, narrowly oblong, or ovate, 6–55 mm long, 4–10 mm wide, distinct or rarely connate, much shorter to somewhat longer than hypanthium, rarely up to as long as the corolla, apex obtuse, truncate, or emarginate, rarely acute, often with an apiculation, tube adnate to ovary. Corolla zygomorphic, blackish purple externally, white or pale lilac within, 60–80 mm long, 6–11 mm wide, densely pubescent or rarely subglabrous externally, glabrous within, the tube arcuate, dorsally cleft to about the middle, the lobes spreading, 1⁄2–3/4 as long as the tube. Stamens 5, alternate with corolla lobes, connate; staminal column glabrous or sparsely pubescent; anthers glabrous, the lower 2 with apical tufts of white hairs, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits, coherent but separating after anthesis or connate and forming a tube into which pollen is shed; filaments distinct or connate above, attached to the epigynous nectary disk or to base of corolla, rarely adnate to corolla tube. 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 yellowish orange; obovoid or ellipsoid; 15–30 mm long; 12–25 mm wide; crowned by the persistent calyx lobes. Seeds numerous; small; brown to black; smooth; shiny; 0.2–0.5(–2) mm long; with a straight; short to spatulate dicotyledonous embryo embedded in oily endosperm.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring in wet forest.

Elevation Range: 760–1,970 m.