Pentanisia ouranogyne S.Moore

Perennial branched or unbranched herb 3.5–60 cm. tall; stems usually with shaggy spreading white hairs, glabrescent beneath, pale yellow-brown to chestnut; main rootstock usually slender, rarely very woody.. Leaf-blades lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, (1–)3–10 cm. long, (0.25–)0.4–1.8(–2.7) cm. wide, acute at the apex, cuneate at the base, mostly with bristly hairs on the venation on both surfaces, more rarely densely hairy or quite glabrous; petiole up to 1 cm. long, adnate to the stipular sheath; stipules ± membranous, pale chestnut or whitish with pale brown streaks, sheathing the stem, with ± 7 bristly hairy setae (2–)5–9.5 mm. long from a base 3–8 mm. long.. Inflorescence a dense terminal head, sometimes branched, 1.3–4.5 cm. wide, not elongating to any extent; peduncle 0–16 cm. long.. Flowers bright blue, rarely pink, often drying with a coppery tinge.. Calyx with long hairs; tube 1–2 mm. long, 1–1.8 mm. wide; foliaceous lobes lanceolate, 3–10 mm. long, 0.8–1.5(–2) mm. wide, pubescent, the rest setiform ± 1–3 mm. long.. Corolla-tube 0.7–2.3 cm. long, 0.75–1 mm. wide at the base, 1–2(–3) mm. wide at the apex, covered with very characteristic short papilla-like subglobular hairs; lobes (2–)3–5.5 mm. long, 0.8–2(–2.5) mm. wide, mostly hairy outside.. Ovary and fruit 2–5-locular (predominantly 3–4); style exserted 0–3(–4) mm. in long-styled flowers; stigma 2–5-lobed, 1–2 mm. long, the lobes filiform.. Fruit reddish brown, often slightly shining, globose, woody, 2.5–3.5(–5) mm. long, 2.5–4(–5) mm. across, pubescent with long hairs, broadest at the base, distinctly furrowed, the walls very thick and woody round the locules but with patches of honeycomb-like tissue just beneath the ridges.. Seeds pale brown, elliptic, thin, 3 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, 0.2 mm. thick.. Fig. 18.

It is a tropical plant. It has been recorded between 20-1,650 m above sea level.