Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs 1–7 m tall.

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

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, borne on upper 3–5 nodes. Those leaves of a pair subequal, symmetrical or nearly so, very broadly cordate, 15–45 cm long, (8–)11–22 cm wide. Apex acuminate to acute. Upper surfaces moderately hirtellous; lower surfaces densely velvety pilose, the hairs yellowish brown, blades chartaceous. Margins coarsely dentate to occasionally denticulate or serrate–dentate. Petioles 5–20 cm long, base sometimes clasping the stem or perfoliate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 3–26 in open, compound, umbelliform cymes arising in the leaf axils, densely shaggy villous throughout, peduncles stout, 25–65 mm long, pedicels 4–25 mm long, elongating to 15–35 mm long in fruit, bracts foliaceous, ovate, distinct or occasionally connate, 10–42 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx 2–5(6)-lobed, nearly actinomorphic, whitish to green when fresh, broadly campanulate, often reflexed in fruit, 6–20(–30) mm long, cleft only slightly to ca. 1⁄2 its length, the lobes deltate to ovate, densely villous to short–villous on both faces, apex caudate to acuminate, tube deciduous or persistent in fruit. Corolla usually bilabiate, white, tube cylindrical, straight or curved, 13–18 mm long, ca. 3–8 mm in diameter, densely villous, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, upper lobes reniform–orbicular, ca. 4 mm long, ca. 4.5 mm wide, lower lobes reniform–orbicular, 5–7 mm long, 6–10 mm wide, the lobes imbricate in bud. 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, oblong–ovoid, 2-carpellate, 1-celled, placentation parietal, placentas 2, ± intruded, rarely joined in center and dividing ovary into 2 cells; ovules numerous, anatropous densely to sparsely villous, apex rounded or with a stylar beak; style 1–5 mm long, villous; stigma capitate, 2-lobed, lobes usually elliptic.

Fruit: Fruit a fleshy or firm berry; white; ovoid; 1–2.5 cm long; densely villous; often tipped by the persistent stylar beak. Seeds numerous; ellipsoid; minute; 0.4–0.5 mm long; the surface reticulate.

Ploidy: 2n = 34*

Habitat: Occurring in moist; shaded gulch–bottoms and on slopes in disturbed mesic valleys.

Elevation Range: (120–)270–460(–580) m.