Lamourouxia gutierrezii Oerst.

Erect perennial herbs or shrubs, perhaps hemiparasitic on the roots of other plants, to 2 m tall, the stems slender, often woody below, drying dark, puberulent with short, weak, blackish, multicellular, rarely branched hairs; branching char-acterized by long wandlike stems and short lateral branches 5-15 cm long. Leaves opposite or verticillate, ovate, mostly 10-15 mm long, ca. 5 mm wide, elliptical or obovate, apically acute, basally cuneate, the margin dentate with ca. 5 rounded, callose and revolute margined teeth on each side, scabrous and shiny above, tomentose beneath with longer, stouter hairs on the veins, the venation pinnate with ca. 5 lateral veins on each side, impressed above, elevated beneath; petiole to 2 mm long, canaliculate, pilose beneath. Inflorescences terminal racemes, the flowers congested or well spaced; pedicels tomentose, ca. 5 mm long, subtended by a small foliaceous bract. Flowers with the calyx cupular, 7-9 mm long, 4-lobed, the lobes obtuse or deltoid, ca. 3 mm long, tomentulose outside, glabrate within, 10-nerved; corolla red or orange, 2.5-4 cm long, tubular, tomentulose outside with branched hairs, more so upwards, 2-lipped, the lips ca. 12 mm long, apically recurved, the upper lip glabrate within except at the apex, the lower lip long pilose in the upper 2/3, bearded at the level of stamen insertion, stamens 2, the filaments inserted low on the lower side of the tube, bearded at point of insertion, otherwise glabrous, the anthers connivent, positioned against the upper lip and barely exserted, U-shaped with pointed auricles, long pilose, 2-thecate, 3-4 mm long; staminodes 2, inserted low on the upper side, the