Shrubs, 0.6-1.2 m tall, much branched; old branches gray or slightly reddish, bark peeling off, young branches slender, with 2 opposite shallow longitudinal channels, densely covered with short soft hairs. Leaves petiolate or sometimes subsessile; petiole shorter than 2 mm; blade membranous-papery, ± black or sometimes brownish when dry, ovate or lanceolate, rarely oblong or broadly ovate, 1-3 × 0.6-1.5 cm, dispersedly strigose adaxially, glabrous or with crinkled long soft hairs on midrib and lateral veins abaxially, rarely entirely hairy, base usually sharply contracted, attenuate into short stalk, apex acute to subacuminate; lateral veins 4-6 pairs, slender, obvious abaxially; stipules triangular or compressed triangular, 2-2.5 mm, pubescent outside, margins with fimbriate collaters, with 2 nerves arching upward and joining at apiculate apex. Flowers usually solitary, terminal, sessile, dimorphic, heterostylous; short-styled flowers: bracts 2, small, ca. 1.5 mm, usually connate, awned apiculate. Calyx black when dry, shiny; lobes 5, narrowly and long triangular, 3.8-4 mm, slightly thick, glabrous or sparsely ciliate on upper portion, equal to calyx in length or slightly shorter. Corolla light blue or slightly reddish, funnelform, 20-22 mm, glabrous outside, white villous inside; limb broad, spreading; lobes 5, induplicate, elliptic, ca. 6 mm, with an incrassate area in center, lateral areas thin, soft, equal to incrassate area in length, with branched venation, margins with erose teeth, apex ?apiculate. Stamens 5, inserted in throat of corolla tube; filaments ca. 1.5 mm; anthers linear, ca. 2.7 mm, apex slightly exserted from tube. Style ca. 10 mm; stigmas 2-lobed, lobes linear, ca. 2.7 mm. Capsules ca. 5 mm; seeds black; aril reticulate, adherent to testa.
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