Shrub or symmetrical tree 5-13 m tall or scandent; branchlets stout, acutely tetragonal, flattened and ampliate at the nodes, the sides deeply canaliculate, glabrous or minutely puberulent. Leaves opposite, large, spreading; membranous, extremely brittle in drying, entire, oval or obovate-oblong, variable in size but usually very large, 17-38 cm long and 10-14 cm wide, broadly rounded or abruptly short-acuminate, basally broadly rounded, usually more or less falcate and con-duplicate, especially at the base, light-green and shiny, glabrous and faintly glandular-punctate or minutely puberulent on both surfaces; petioles stout, 12-18 mm long, glabrous or minutely puberulent. Inflorescences terminal thyrsoid panicles to 18 cm long and 13 cm wide or bracteate, the sympodia fastigiate, acutely tetragonal and canaliculate, complanate at the nodes, glabrate or finely puberulent throughout; cymes axillary, long-pedunculate, less than half as long as the subtending leaves; peduncles 1.5-3 cm or more long, glabrate or minutely puberulent; pedicels ca. 3 mm long, puberulent; bracts foliaceous, lanceolate, often absent; bractlets and prophylls subulate, 1-2 mm long. Flowers abundant, calyx obpyramidal, ca. 3.5 mm long and wide, finely puberulent, subtruncate or with irregular and shallowly repand lobes; corolla white, greenish-yellow, to orange, hypocrateriform, the tube narrow, 3-15 mm long, gradually ampliate above, the 4-lobes oblong-lanceolate, ca. 6.2 mm long and 2 mm wide, subacute; stamens 4, inserted ca. 1.3 mm below the mouth of the corolla-tube, long-exserted in the staminate flowers or included in the pistillate, the filaments 3.5-10 mm long, glabrous; pistil included in the staminate flowers or long-exserted in the pistillate, the style 3.2-8.5 mm long, the stigma branches ca. 2.5 mm long, the ovary subrotund, light, ca. 1.1 mm long and wide, glabrous, flattened and 4-lobed above, 4-celled. Fruit subtetragonal, ca. 4 mm long and 5 mm wide, plainly 4-lobed, wrinkled in drying, 4-seeded; fruiting-calyx much enlarged and indurated, shallowly cupuliform or patelliform, deeply and irregularly lobed.
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