Robust perennial herb, 25-100 cm. Leaves lanceolate-obovate, apex rounded, base acute, decurrent along the petiole, midrib passing into a thick petiole, 10-50 by 4-10 cm, margin regular-dentate; nervation more or less reticulate. Flowers in 1-7 whorls, whether or not pendulous, pedicels 2-4 cm. Bracts linear with whether or not folia-ceous broadened apex. Calyx 4-8 mm, with shorter or longer toothed teeth sometimes short or long-acuminate, whether or not yellow waxy. Corolla pale, bright or golden yellow; tube 7-15 mm, limb 10-20 mm ø. Anthers inserted halfway the corolla tube or near the limb, in Mai. specimens high-inserted (except on Mt Jang) and homosty-lous. Style 4-14 mm half as long as the tube or of the same length. Capsule globose, shortly 5-valved, erect. Seeds ∞, angular, brown.
Rather open mossy forest, on damp soil along brooks and in exposed marshy places, 2000-3250 m (in the Himalayas even higher), only on mountains of which the summit reaches at least 2650 m. The small angular seeds which are produced in great quantity can be dispersed by rain-wash and by streams, as has been observed on Mts Pangrango and Papandajan in Java.In JUNGHUHN'S time this beautiful plant was on the summit zone of the extinct forest-cladPangrango cone confined between 2900 and 3000 m; in the course of time it has succeeded to descend along the trail to the saddle between Gedeh and Pangrango at c. 2500 m and has been grown successfully near the shelter Lebak-saat at 2450 m. Attempts to introduce it on the adjacent Gedeh Peak, either by seed or plants, by TEYSMANN, DOCTERS VAN LEEUWEN, and VAN STEENIS have failed, obviously through the unsuitable soil conditions, not through seed inaccessibility.
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