Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs 0.5–1.5 m tall.

Stems: Stems subherbaceous, woody only at base, unbranched or sparingly branched.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades elliptic to narrowly obovate, blades 12–30 cm long, 3–7 cm wide. Apex acuminate. Base cuneate. Upper surfaces green, sparsely pubescent; lower surfaces whitish green, pubescent. Margins minutely callose–denticulate. Petioles 2–4 cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences 8–24–flowered, axillary, pubescent, peduncles 6–25 mm long, pedicels 6–15 mm long; hypanthium obovoid, 4–6 mm long, pubescent. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 5-lobed, lobes narrowly triangular, apex acuminate, 5–8 mm long, distinct or rarely connate, tube adnate to ovary. Corolla zygomorphic, whitish with pale lilac longitudinal stripes or dark purplish, 30–35 mm long, 3–4 mm wide, sparsely pubescent, the tube suberect to slightly curved, dorsally cleft to about the middle, the lobes spreading, ¼–⅓ as long as the tube. Stamens 5, alternate with corolla lobes, connate; staminal column sparsely pubescent; anthers densely 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.

Fruit: Berries purplish orange; obovoid to ellipsoid; 7–8 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:

Habitat: Occurring in wet forest.

Elevation Range: 1,000–1,600 m.