Trees to 9 m tall, the branchlets terete, glabrous, ultimately rugulose and knotty, lenticellate, the nodes proximate, armed, the spines thickly subulate, to 0.8 cm long, the leaf scars usually obvious only at the tips of the twigs, com-pressed rotund to rotund. Leaves tending to persist at the ends of the twiglets in rosettes, elliptic oblong, oblong to oblong rotund, 8.5-10.0(-15.0) cm long, 2-5(-10) cm wide, acute to occasionally rounded at the apex, occasionally vaguely acuminate, cuneate or obtuse at the base, the costa prominulous above and be-neath, the lateral veins 11-13, strongly arcuate ascending, scabrous and hirtellous above, densely pilose beneath, the hairs short, white, chartaceous, discolorous or concolorous; petioles to 4 cm long; stipules crowded at the apex of the twiglets, imbricate, glumaceous, ovate oblong, to 1 cm long, obtuse, glabrous outside, ciliate, lined with elongate, weak, and appressed hairs within, the hairs to 2 mm long. Flowers sessile, 1-3 at the tips of the branchlets, the hypanthium short, the calycine cup cylindrical or subcampanulate, to 1.5 cm long, 0.6-0.8 cm wide, densely sericeous outside, densely appressed villose within, truncate, the calycine teeth linear, to 7 mm long, erect, well spaced, villose; corolla white, the tube to 5.5 cm long or perhaps longer, narrowly cylindrical, ca. 6 mm wide at the apex, densely silvery sericeous outside, sparsely pilose within, the lobes 5, narrowly ovate lanceolate, to 4.5 cm long, attenuate and acute, sericeous outside, glabrous on the margins, glabrous within; anthers ca. 1 cm long; ovarian disc barrel shaped, 1.25-1.75 mm long, 0.5-0.7 mm wide, villose. Fruits sessile, rotund, to 7 cm in diam., smooth, velvety puberulent outside, the wall thick and woody, to 0.5 cm thick; seeds plano compressed, to 1 cm long, amber colored, embedded in a gelatinous white pulp.
Home