Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small erect shrubs, sometimes apparently succulent and woody only at the base.

Stems: Stems slightly woody toward base, basal leafy portion decumbent, quadrangular, up to 3 dm long, epidermis corky, longitudinally grooved.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, clustered toward base of stem. Blades broadly ovate to broadly elliptic, fleshy, 5.5–15 cm long, (2–)3.5–7.5 cm wide. Blades elliptic to oblong, rarely ovate or lanceolate, 3–8 cm long, (0.7–)1.5–3 cm wide. Apex obtuse. Base cuneate to rounded. Upper surfaces dark green, glossy; lower surfaces somewhat glaucous; lower surfaces very sparsely and minutely white scabrous. Upper surfaces glabrous or rarely hispidulous; lower surfaces glabrous, hirtellous, or hispidulous; blades coriaceous. Margins entire. Higher order venation on lower surface prominently reticulate. Petioles 0.5–1 cm long, base expanded and connate into a sheath. Stipules broad, deltate, up to 3.5 mm long, adnate to sheath, apex acuminate, mucronate with mucro ca. 1.5 mm long.

Flowers: Flowers few in terminal corymbose cymes; hypanthium turbinate, ca. 0.5 mm long. Flowers insect-pollinated, bisexual (perfect). Calyx 4-5-lobed, lobes deltate, 0.5–0.7 mm long. Corolla fleshy, salverform, glabrous or hirtellous, the tube 5–10 mm long, the limb quadrangular in bud, apex depressed, 4-5-lobed, the lobes ca. 3 mm long, inflexed in bud, each with an inward pointing appendage ca. 0.5 mm long. Stamens as many as and alternate with the corolla lobes, inserted on corolla throat, slightly exserted by the spreading corolla lobes; 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; styles as many as carpels, enlarged toward base the lower 1/3 densely woolly-pilose, cylindrical to filiform, terminal, slender, the lobes flat; stigma bilobed or subcapitate, included or exserted.

Fruit: Capsules lenticular; ca. 2.5–3 mm long; ca.7–8 mm wide; dehiscing loculicidally across disk; pyrenes tardily separating septicidally; mesocarp apparently dry; endocarp weakly sclerified; disk slightly raised. Seeds dark brown; compressed; irregularly angled; with well-developed oily endosperm; or endosperm occasionally scanty or absent.

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