Drymonia serrulata Mart.

Succulent, terrestrial herbs or low shrubs, epiphytic or scandent shrubs, or more usually lianas; stem succulent when young, becoming woody with a papery bark, when erect to 2 m tall, or to 10 m long and 10 cm in diam. near the base when climbing, often with adventitious roots in the internodes or with prominent brownish corky lenticels on woody stems, reddish or green, sparsely strigose or puberulous toward the apex; branched or not. Leaves opposite, equal to nearly equal in a pair, elliptic or oblong to obovate, 4-19 cm long, 2-8 cm wide, the apex acute or acuminate, the base cuneate to rounded, sometimes oblique, serrulate to sinuate dentate, somewhat succulent when fresh, dark green or with a lighter patterning above, sparsely strigillose to scabrous, below light green to purplish or with a purple patterning especially in younger leaves, sparsely strigillose to glabrescent, less between the veins; petioles 0.6-30 cm long, ap-pressed pubescent. Inflorescences of solitary or rarely to 3 flowers in the leaf axils; peduncles, lacking; pedicels 0.5-2.5 cm long, puberulous. Flowers large and showy; calyx of 5 more or less free leaflike lobes, the 4 lobes erect, nearly equal, ovate, lanceolate to oblong, decurved, 2-5 cm long, 0.5-3 cm wide, acute or acuminate at the apex, the base rounded to cordate, the fifth (dorsal) calyx lobe smaller than the others and curved around the corolla spur, all with entire, sinuate to serrulate margins, puberulous or sparsely strigillose on both sides, persistent and accrescent in fruit; corolla variously colored, from white, cream, pale yellow, pink, dark red to purple, often with red, lavender, maroon, or purple veins or spots in the throat of the tube, coloring becoming darker during anthesis, 3-7 cm long, puberulent outside, inside glandular pubescent at least toward the throat, the tube oblique, with a basal globose spur, then contracted above the spur, gibbous or ventricose dorsally above, then broadening toward the throat, 2-3 cm long, 3-8 mm wide at the base, 10-20 mm wide at the throat; limb broad, bilabiate, the lobes rounded, 1.0-1.5 cm wide, serrulate, reflexed, except the lower anterior lobe which is larger and erose fimbriate, all often darker colored or spotted; stamens included, held in the throat at anthesis, then coiling and withdrawing, the filaments broader at the base, glabrous, the anthers connivent, ca. 6 mm long, 2 mm wide, the base spurred and sagittate, the staminode small, glabrous; disc of a single large gland or annular and dorsally widened, glabrous; ovary ovoid, puberulous, the style elongating as filaments withdraw, ca. 2.5 cm long, curved, glandular pubescent; stigma bibbed. Capsule globose to broadly ovoid, 1-2 cm long and wide, puberulous, the line of de-hiscence prominent, bivalved, the valves thick and fleshy, yellowish to purplish outside, orange to red within with a large dark conic mass of placental and funicle tissue and seeds; seeds black, shiny, oblong, fusiform, ca. 1 mm long, twisted and striate. Chromosomes 2n-18 (Ratter, 1963), n = 9 (Wiehler, 1972).