Shrub, ?hemiepiphytic or epiphytic; twigs strongly angled or winged, glabrous; stems strongly 2-4 angled or sharply narrow winged at the nodes, angled into the petioles, the internodes mostly short; bark drying gray. Leaves opposite, simple, entire, obovate, 3-9 cm long, 12-25 mm wide, apically indistinctly short acuminate or obtuse, basally obtuse or acute, mostly drying slightly revolute, slatey above, ochraceous beneath, the major venation impressed above, elevated and contrasting beneath, the usually 3 pinnate veins on each side arcuate and ascending, the proximal pair near the margin and often giving the leaf a plinerved appearance, minor venation obscure, ciliate at least apically and along the costa beneath, glabrescent or sparingly pubescent at maturity, some populations barbulate and pitted in the vein axils beneath, minutely punctate on both sides with submerged peltate trichomes; petiole 7-14 mm long, channeled above, glabrate or sparingly hispid. Inflorescence terminal, cymose, congested, sometimes subumbellate and many flowered; peduncle short to obsolete, strongly angled; pedicels glabrate to 3.5 cm long, subtended by small bracts, flat and deltoid or linear and to 6 mm long, pubescent with nearly straight white tuberculate hairs. Flowers showy, the pedicels, the calyx and the corolla magenta; calyx merging with the apically expanded pedicel, cupular or campanulate, 2-5 mm long (excluding teeth), somewhat succulent, the 5 triangular costa conspicuous or not, running into the teeth, the teeth deltoid to subulate, 3-5 mm long, becoming 6-9 mm long in fruit, sometimes laterally compressed and appearing cucullate, glabrate or sparingly pilose with gland tipped hairs, the sinuses obtuse, rounded or truncate, sometimes thin, especially in fruit; corolla tubular, to 3 cm long, 3 mm wide, sometimes slightly curved, the 5 short, rotund lobes quincuncial in bud, thinning at the margins, ciliolate, the throat pulverulent, the tube bearded just below the point of the stamen insertion; stamens 4, the filaments densely bearded at the point of insertion, narrowed at the tip, glabrous, the anthers situated in 2 proximal pairs just below the corolla mouth, 2-locular, the locules proximal, dehiscing longitudinally, the connective differentiated, somewhat discolorous; ovary obo-void, apically flat or depressed, glabrous, the stigma flat, terminally annular, slightly broader than the style. Fruit a berry, nearly included in the calyx cup, 2-loculai, many-seeded; seeds numerous, 3-4 mm long, wedge shaped with 1 end acute, strongly angled, minutely pubescent, mucilaginous and slimy.
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