Shrub 1.5 m. tall, the younger stems, petioles, panicle, and hypanthia rufous-tomentose with stellate, often stipitate hairs; stems later glabrescent; petioles 5-8 mm. long; leaf-blades lanceolate, up to 8 cm. long, a third to two-fifths as wide, acuminate, entire, rounded at base, 3-nerved, minutely setose above, beneath stellate densely on the primary veins, very sparsely so on the surface; panicles 2-3 cm. long, terminating short bifoliate divaricate branches; flowers 4-merous, sub-sessile, each (and each node of the panicle) subtended by a short subulate bract; hypanthium cup-shaped, about 1.5 mm. long to the torus; calyx-tube very short, its lobes triangular, acute, 0.7 mm. long from the sinus; exterior teeth adnate almost to the summit of the sepals, thence divergent, subulate, 0.5 mm. long; petals white, obovate-oblong, about 2.5 mm. long; stamens dimorphic; anthers linear, about 2.5 or about 2 mm. long, the connective of the larger broadly dilated below the thecae into a cordate organ, its sides folded around the sides and meeting at the apex of the filament; connective of the small anthers scarcely dilated, prolonged into one minute dorsal and two small lateral lobes; stigma capitate.
Home