Shrubs or small trees, the branches slender, terete, glabrous. Leaves pet-iolate or subsessile, the petioles slender to stout, canaliculate, rarely to 1.5 cm long, usually marginate; leaf blades membranaceous, elliptic-lanceolate, broadly elliptic, or oblanceolate, 12-25 cm long and 3.5-7.5 cm wide, acuminate apically, acute or attenuate basally, decurrent, entire or subentire, glabrous, densely lineolate-punctate beneath, the primary veins slender, evident on both surfaces. Inflorescences usually pink throughout, pinnately-paniculate, glabrous, usually shorter than the leaves, rarely reduced. Flowers 5-merous, corymbose, to 1 cm long, glabrous, the pedicels 1-2.3 cm long; bracts conspicuous, large, narrow, punctate, finally deciduous; sepals linear, oblong to broadly elliptic, 5-8 mm long, emarginate apically, black-punctate with large linear glands, these often forming ridges, glandular within basally; petals connate basally 2 mm, ovate-elliptic, to 9 mm long, asymmetrical, black-punctate with linear glands, glandular basally within; stamens 5-6 mm long, the filaments slender, to 1.5 mm long, glanduliferous, the anthers concolorous, thick, linear-lanceolate, to 3.2 mm long, dehiscent by flaring apical pores; ovary glabrous, the ovules 12-many, pluriseriate, the style punctate, glabrous, ca. 5 mm long, slender. Fruit globose, ca. 5 mm in diameter.
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The leaves are subsessile, decurrent oblanceolate and entire, reaching 19 cm. long in cultivated material.. The calyx-lobes are oblong, and the pink, red or purple flowers, which attain 9 mm. in diameter, have ovate obtuse corolla-lobes.. The anthers in this species dehisce by apical pores, but I suspect that the pores expand into longitudinal slits as the anthers age.
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