Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Fleshy herbs.

Stems: Stems dark reddish purple, erect or sometimes ascending from a short repent base, stout, 40–100 cm long, 8–15 mm in diameter, branched usually above middle, internodes 3–15 cm long, moderately to densely hirsute, the hairs ca. 1 mm long, older stems glabrate.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Whorled in upper part, opposite in lower parts. Blades ovate or elliptic–ovate, 5–10 cm long, 2.5–5.5 cm wide. Apex acuminate to long-acuminate. Base rounded to subcordate or broadly cuneate. Upper surfaces sparsely hirsute toward base; lower surfaces hirsute; green; lower surfaces paler, somewhat thickened, drying chartaceous. Margins flat, ciliate. Pinnately 7–11-veined, veins deeply impressed on upper surface, some of the tertiary veins slightly impressed. Petioles 1–2 cm long, sometimes those of lower leaves up to 6 cm long, hirsute, the hairs somewhat appressed. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in spikes usually several, axillary and terminal, 4–7 cm long, the rachis 3–4 mm in diameter, glabrous, flowers densely congested, peduncles ca. 1 cm long, hirsute. Flowers bisexual (perfect), perianth absent. Each flower subtended by a peltate bract. Calyx (sepals) absent. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 2. Ovary superior, ovoid, slightly embedded in rachis, 1-carpellate, 1-celled, apex ± oblique; ovules 1 per cell, orthotropous, erect; stigmas 1–4, terminal.

Fruit: Fruit obovoid; ca. 1–1.3 mm long; papillose–viscid with sessile glands. Seeds 1 per fruit; with scanty endosperm and copious; starchy perisperm.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Rare in wet forest.

Elevation Range: 670–1,060 m.