Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs 1–2.5 m tall.

Stems: Stems usually many-branched, rounded to angular, pubescent with multicellular hairs or glabrate.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, borne on upper 4–10 nodes. Those leaves of a pair unequal, slightly asymmetrical, elliptic, occasionally broadly elliptic or ovate, (5–)6–20 cm long, (1.8–)2.3–5(–5.5) cm wide. Apex acuminate to long-acuminate. Base attenuate or occasionally cuneate. Upper surfaces sparsely appressed hirtellous; lower surfaces sparsely to moderately puberulent, occasionally appressed pilose, especially along veins; thin to occasionally thick, chartaceous. Margins serrate or rarely serrulate. Lower surface with slightly raised veins. Petioles 0.8–5.5 cm long, puberulent to moderately villous, base sometimes clasping the stem or perfoliate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 1–2(–4) in cymes arising in the leaf axils or occasionally on short side branches lower on stems, densely appressed pilose, densely villous, or rarely glabrate, peduncles slender, 0–5(–9) mm long, pedicels slender, (10–)15–30 mm long, elongating to 25–40 mm long in fruit, bracts linear to linear–elliptic, 1–9(–12) mm long, distinct or occasionally connate. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 2–5(6)-lobed, nearly actinomorphic, apparently greenish white when fresh, (8–)12–20 mm long, slightly elongating up to 22 mm long in fruit, cleft to base, the lobes linear–subulate to linear–spatulate, densely appressed pilose to densely villous, occasionally glabrate, within glabrous to occasionally sparsely villous in upper ⅔, apex long–attenuate to rounded, deciduous or persistent in fruit. Corolla usually bilabiate, white, slightly curved, tube narrowly funnelform to subcylindrical, (12–)15–18 mm long, ca. 3–4 mm in diameter medially, sparsely pilose, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, the lobes imbricate in bud, upper lobes broadly elliptic to suborbicular, 5–6 mm long, 6–8 mm wide, lower lobes elliptic to very broadly ovate, 7.5–9 mm long, 6.5–10 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, glabrous, rarely with a few scattered hairs, oblong–ovoid, 2-carpellate, 1-celled, placentation parietal, placentas 2, ± intruded, rarely joined in center and dividing ovary into 2 cells; ovules numerous, anatropous, apex rounded or with a stylar beak; style 3–5 mm long, glabrous, rarely with a few scattered hairs; stigma capitate, 2-lobed, lobes usually elliptic.

Fruit: Fruit a fleshy or firm berry; white; ellipsoid; ca. 1.4–1.6 cm long; often tipped by the persistent stylar beak. Seeds unknown.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring in wet or rarely mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 530–1,900 m.