Erect or sprawling herbs to 5.5 dm. tall, rhizomatous, the branches wooly interspersed with occasional large red hairs, scabrous. Leaves lanceolate to elliptic-lanceolate, acute at the apex, obtuse at the base, 0.8-4.0 cm. long, 0.1-2.0 cm. wide, reduced toward the apex, above glabrous to puberulous and strigose, beneath strigose and scabrous, margin minutely ciliate, primary lateral veins slightly arcuate; petiole 1-5 mm. long. Cymes gathered into terminal foliate racemiform or panicu-liform clusters, the flowers alternately interpetiolar, solitary; peduncle 3.5-7.0 mm. long; pedicel about 0.25 mm. long; bracteoles 2, minute. Hypanthium sub-ampullaceous, 4-7 mm. long, median diameter about 1.25 mm., transverse at the orifice, gibbous at the base, white puberulent with interspersed red hairs. Petals 6, 2.5-3.0 mm. long, 1.5-2.0 mm. wide, violet. Stamens 11, the anterior 9 alter-nately unequal, included, the filaments densely villous; disc unilateral, not reflexed. Ovary broadly ovoid, 1.5-3.0 mm. long, greatly elongating in fruit, glabrous; style 1.0-1.5 mm. long, glabrous or villous, included, becoming exserted in fruit. Seeds 5-9, suborbicular, 1.0-1.8 mm. long, 1.0-1.5 mm. wide, emarginate.
Pastures, thickets and forests; at elevations from 1,100-2,200 metres in Costa Rica
Home