Suffruticose herbs to 1 m tall; stems basally to 5 cm in diameter, apparently unbranched or nearly so and inconspicuously spreading short-pubescent. Leaves cauline, apparently numerous and rather evenly spaced along the stem, spreading-ascendant, thin papery to semichartaceous when dry, inconspicuously serrulate with appressed, incurved teeth, medially 1-3 per cm; blades elliptic, slightly broadest above the middle, acutely tapering both apically and basally, 15-30 cm long, 3-7.5 cm wide, about 4-6 times as long as wide, glabrous on both the upper and lower surfaces; petioles glabrous, 1-2 cm long. Inflorescences 60-80 cm long, 40-70-flowered, narrowly cylindrical; bracts elliptic, tapering to either end and somewhat broader above the middle, inconspicuously serrulate, glabrous, the upper bract ca. 2 cm long, 6-8 mm wide, the lowermost bract to 10 cm long, 3-4 cm wide; pedicels stiff, straight, strongly divaricate except distally where upturned at anthesis and somewhat incurved in fruit, 1.2-2.8 cm long in flower, 2-3 cm long in fruit, 1-1.5 mm in diameter, densely spreading short-pubescent and bear-ing a pair of linear to lanceolate, serrulate, glabrous bracteoles ca. 3/4 or more the distance from the base of the pedicel, 6-10 mm long, 1-2 mm wide. Flowers 2.8-3.2 cm long including the hypanthium; hypanthium at anthesis broadly hemi-spherical, glabrous or basally spreading short-pubescent, symmetrical or nearly so, 6-9 mm high, 10-15 mm in diameter, with a free calycine rim about 2 mm high; calyx lobes at anthesis triangular or deltoid, glabrous, inconspicuously ser-rulate, 5-8 mm long, 2-4 mm wide at the base; corolla light green, glabrous, the tube 10-15 mm long, distally strongly curved ventrally, dorsally slit, at first to within 6-8 mm and eventually to within 1 mm of the base and with 2 conspicuous lateral fenestrae (slits) 4-6 mm high, the lobes all strongly arching ventrally, the 2 upper lobes linear or linear-lanceolate, 10-15 mm long, ca. 2 mm wide, acute, the 3 lower lobes 8-12 mm long, 2 mm wide; filament tube glabrous, 15-20 mm long, connate except for the basal 4-5 mm, the anther tube 4-6 mm long, glabrous except for the dense tuft of white trichomes ca. 1 mm long at the apex of each anther. Capsules somewhat depressed hemispheric, 8-12 mm high, 10-15 mm in diameter, ca. 2/5 superior, terminating in the tapering, 2-4 mm long, conical base of the style; seeds compressed, broadly oblong, ca. 0.8 mm long, 0.6 mm broad, shallowly pitted.
Home