Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Terrestrial shrubs.

Stems: Stems unbranched, fleshy, 0.3–1.3 m long, unarmed, muricate, or aculeate.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades broadly obovate, 30–75 cm long, 9–16 cm wide. Apex acute to acuminate. Upper surfaces glabrous; lower surfaces glabrous or pubescent. Margins undulate, callose–crenulate to entire. Petioles 0.8–4 cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences 3–8–flowered, pubescent, peduncles 20–30 mm long, pedicels 10–20 mm long; hypanthium obconical, 8–12 mm long, pubescent. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 5-lobed, lobes ovate to oblong, 6-12 mm long, 3-6 mm wide, pubescent, distinct or rarely connate, apex obtuse to truncate, base often cordate and overlapping, tube adnate to ovary. Corolla zygomorphic, pale magenta with darker longitudinal stripes, 4-6 cm long, pubescent, the tube suberect to strongly arcuate, dorsally cleft to about the middle, the lobes connate, spreading, rarely erect or all 5 downcurved in the same plane. Stamens 5, alternate with corolla lobes, connate, staminal column pale purplish, glabrous; anthers dark purple, glabrous to sparsely pubescent, 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 globose; 10 mm long. 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: 2n = 28

Habitat: Occurring in mesic to wet forest.

Elevation Range: 185–730 m.