Shrubs or small trees to 5 m tall, the branchlets terete, the internodes drying contracted and angular. Leaves oblong, 10-21 cm long, 3.5-8.0 cm wide, acute at the apex, ultimately acuminate, the acumen to 1.3 cm long, cuneate or slightly obtuse at the base, the costa prominulous above, prominent beneath, convex, the lateral veins 12-15, arcuate, prominent, stiffly subcoriaceous to rigidly charta-ceous, slightly discolorous, brown when dry, appressed white ciliate above, gold-en pilose beneath with some hairs hook shaped and rigid; petioles 1.0-2.5 cm long, lignose, pilose; stipules connate, the sheath urceolate or briefly cylindrical, rigid, turgid, to 0.7 cm long, golden puberulent, each part with 2 subulate awns, to 0.4 cm long, rigid, well spaced and erect. Inflorescences terminal, to 9 cm long, the peduncle absent or 1-4 cm long, the flowers often crowded above the middle of the rachis, the latter densely villosulose, to 0.3 cm wide; the lowermost bracts subulate, to 4 mm long, the flowers large, arranged in a loose subrotund head, to 8 cm wide, sometimes resembling a fan. Flowers with the hypanthium subrotund, to 1 mm long, white villose, the teeth 5-6, ca. 0.8 mm long; corolla violet or purple, the tube conspicuously elongate, to 4 cm long, to 0.6 cm wide toward the apex, narrower below the middle, to 1.5 mm wide, petaloid outside with patches of webby, flat, triangularly subulate hairs to 1.5 mm long, the cells of which are bubblelike, glabrous within, the lobes 5, short, oblong, to 3 mm long, thicker than the tube, moderately hooded; stamens 5, the anthers oblong, 3.0-3.5 mm long, the style elongate, 30-40 mm long, ca. 0.35 mm wide, plane compressed, the stigmas 2, fingerlike, 2.0-3.3 mm long. Fruits sessile, immature, didymous, dirty yellow, drying red, subrotund, to 8 mm in diam., minutely golden puberulent.
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