Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Diffuse herbs.

Stems: Stem 4-angled and prominently winged, hispid.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades 2-5 X 1.5-3.5 cm, broadly elliptic or ovate. Apex acute. Base rounded or cuneate. Surfaces hispid on both sides. Margins with 1 to numerous filiform setae. Lateral veins prominent. Sessile or petiolate. Stipules sheathing, with subulate hispid bristles.

Flowers: Flowers in axillary few-flowered cymes, subtended by 1-2 or more pairs of bract-like leaves, stipule-derived bracteoles with setae; hypanthium obovoid, turbinate, or obconical. Flowers insect-pollinated, usually small, bisexual (perfect), sessile, often heterostylous. Calyx tube c. 1.5 mm long; lobes 2-4(-8) with open aestivation, ovate-acuminate, unequal. Corolla white, c. 4 mm long, funnelform or salverform, hairy at throat, throat usually slender; lobes 4, spreading, valvate in bud; nectary disk usually present. Stamens 4, attached at throat between the lobes, usually exserted; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits.

Fruit: Fruit are capsules 2.5-4 mm long; ellipsoid; densely pubescent. Seeds 2; usually glossy brown; 1.5-2 mm long; ellipsoid; reticulate-rugose on dorsal side; with well-developed oily endosperm; or endosperm occasionally scanty or absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Moist and dry deciduous forests and waste places.

Elevation Range: