Description ⁴

Shrubs ca. 1 m tall, young branchlets and leaves with dense darkly reddish brown, longer and shorter verticillate hairs, soon mealy. Branches gray, glabrous, lenticellate. Leaves opposite; petiole 2-6 mm; leaf blade broadly elliptic or ovate, 5-10 × 2-6 cm, thinly leathery, abaxial surface with sparse, short verticillate hairs or subglabrous, adaxial surface glabrous, lateral veins 5-8 pairs, base rounded to shallowly cordate, apex obtuse to subrounded. Racemes solitary or 2 together, axillary, 4-6-flowered; peduncle and rachis 3-10 mm, with dense, long, darkly ferruginous, verticillate hairs. Flowers densely alternate; bracts ovate-triangular, ca. 0.5 mm. Pedicel 1-1.5 cm. Calyx ovoid, ca. 4 mm, limb annular. Mature bud tubular, 0.8-1.5 cm, tip ellipsoid, apex obtuse. Corolla brown, slightly curved, tomentose, apical portion inflated, lobes lanceolate, ca. 4.5 mm, reflexed. Filaments ca. 1 mm; anthers ca. 1 mm. Stigma subcapitate. Fruiting pedicel ca. 3 mm, recurved. Berry pyriform, 8-10 × 3-4 mm, with verticillate hairs, base contracted into stalk. Fl. Oct-Feb.

Sources and Credits

1. (c) wan_hong, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/10382320@N08/8050667535/
2. (c) wan_hong, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/10382320@N08/8050667732/
3. (c) wan_hong, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/10382320@N08/8050670396/
4. (c) Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, MO, 63110 USA, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/4931396

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