Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs 1.5–4 m tall.

Stems: Stems unbranched to few–branched. 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, symmetrical to slightly asymmetrical, broadly ovate to broadly elliptic, 11–34 cm long, 5.7–15.5 cm wide. Apex acuminate. Base cuneate. Upper surfaces sparsely covered with white, hemispherical, subsessile glands; lower surfaces moderately covered with subsessile glands and sometimes also appressed short–villous along veins; thick, chartaceous. Margins crenate, denticulate, or serrate. Upper surface with impressed veins, lower surface with conspicuously raised reticulate veins. Petioles 3–13 cm long, base sometimes clasping the stem or perfoliate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 10–25 in short, dense, compound, umbelliform cymes arising in the leaf axils, moderately covered with subsessile glands throughout, peduncles stout, 3–10 mm long, pedicels slender, 6–12 mm long, elongating to 8–17 mm long in fruit, bracts narrowly ovate to lanceolate, distinct or occasionally connate, 0.5–3 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 2–5(6)-lobed, actinomorphic or nearly so, green, 2–4(–5) mm long, cleft 1⁄2–⅔ its length, the lobes very narrowly deltate, lower 3 slightly longer, all lobes moderately covered with subsessile glands, deciduous or persistent in fruit. Corolla usually bilabiate, white, tube subcylindrical, slightly curved above middle, 6–14 mm long, enlarging to ca. 4–6 mm in diameter medially, moderately covered with subsessile glands, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, the lobes imbricate in bud, upper lobes reniform, 1.5–2 mm long, 3–4 mm wide, lower lobes broadly elliptic, 3–5 mm long, 4–5 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, covered with subsessile glands, apex rounded or with a stylar beak; style ca. 2 mm long, covered with subsessile glands; stigma capitate, 2-lobed, lobes usually elliptic.

Fruit: Fruit a fleshy or firm berry; white; narrowly ovoid; 0.9–1.2 cm long; covered with subsessile glands; often tipped by the persistent stylar beak. Seeds numerous; ellipsoid; minute; 0.3–0.4 mm long; the surface reticulate.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring in moist; shaded gulch–bottoms and along stream banks in mesic valleys; occasionally in wet forest.

Elevation Range: 240–550 m.