Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Small shrubs.
Stems:
Stems long, arcuate, 1–2.5(–4) m long.
Roots:
Leaves:
Leaves simple.
Whorled (3–4 per node) or sometimes opposite.
Blades ovate to lanceolate, 2.5–6 cm long, 1–2 cm wide.
Margins serrate.
Petioles 0.5–1 cm long.
Stipules small, usually deciduous.
Flowers:
Flowers bisexual (perfect), axillary and pendent, peduncles 3–4.5 cm long.
Sepals magenta, 20–25 mm long, valvate.
Petals dark purple, convolute after anthesis, 10–13 mm long.
Stamens 8, in two series, exserted; filaments 25–30 mm long, basifixed, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits.
Pollen shed singly.
Ovary inferior, as many cells and carpels as sepals; ovules anatropous; style 1; stigma capitate, globose, or clavate, 4-lobed to subentire.
Fruit:
Berries ellipsoid; 10–15 mm long.
Seeds small; endosperm absent.
Ploidy:
2n = 22; 44
Habitat:
Mesic to wet forest.
Elevation Range: