Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs.

Stems: Stems erect to decumbent, 1–5 m long, openly branched, sparsely pubescent with short appressed hairs.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades ovate to oblong, 3–9 cm long, 2–5 cm wide (juvenile leaves or leaves of young flowering plants narrower than those of mature plants). Apex obtuse to rounded. Base cuneate to truncate. Surfaces moderately pubescent with short appressed hairs, becoming glabrate with age. Margins entire. Pinnately veined. Petioles 4–8 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in slender spikes 3–14 cm long, ca. 4 mm or less in diameter; Peduncles 0.5–1.5 cm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect), broadly ovoid, actinomorphic, Each flower subtended by a persistent bract and 2 bracteoles. Calyx of 4 sepals, equal, ovate, ca. 3 mm long, pubescent with short appressed to spreading hairs. Sepals subtended by a very broadly ovate, scarious bract ca. 1 mm long, ca. 1.5–2 mm wide, persistent on the rachis, bracteoles cordate to ovate, keeled, ca. 1 mm long, deciduous with the calyx and fruit. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 4, connate at base; anthers dithecal. Ovary superior, 2–3(4)-carpellate, the carpels connate to form a compound, 1-celled ovary; ovule placentation basal, free-central, or rarely apical; style 1, often lobed.

Fruit: Fruit ca. 2 mm long; enclosed by the calyx. Seeds 1 per fruit; the surface usually lustrous; endosperm essentially absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Rare in open; remnant dry forest; sometimes on cliff faces; in gulches; or on steep slopes.

Elevation Range: 300–700 m.