Home
An erect herb or shrub. It grows 3.5 m high. The branches have dense bristles. The leaves are simple and arranged in spirals. They are 6-25 cm long by 2-8 cm wide. The base is wedge shaped and they taper to the tip. The flowers are in groups near the ends of the branches. The fruit are round berries. They are 6-8 mm across. They turn yellow then red as they ripen.
Corolla white to pale blue or mauve, stelliform; limb (9)10–12(14) mm across; lobes 3–5 × 1.7 mm, lanceolate, elliptic-lanceolate to linear, acute to acuminate, often somewhat cucullate, densely pulverulent to tomentose outside at least near the apex, glabrous except for few stellate hairs on the midvein and near the apex inside, ± spreading to reflexed.
Cymes terminal, becoming lateral and extra-axillary, often forked dichotomously 3–5 times, paniculiform to corymbiform, 3–13 cm long, dense, with many flowers, these clustered at the extremities, hairy like the branches, soon glabrescent, ± bristly; peduncle (1.2)2–4.5 cm long, with many to very few bristles.
Shrub or small tree 0.6–3.6 m high; sympodia plurifoliate; hairs stellate, ± sessile, regular, with many short rays, mostly minute but some modified as bristles, these pale straw-coloured to violet or brownish, up to 7 mm long, sometimes ± lignified and prickle-like when old.
Ovary 0.7–1 mm in diameter, globose or ± ovoid, minutely glandular and also with a few stellate hairs apically; style 4–6 mm long, exceeding the stamens, ± straight, with a few stellate hairs and minute glands from the base to about the middle.
Calyx 1.5–2.5 mm long, 2.5–4 mm across, not very accrescent, campanulate or cupular, pulverulent-tomentose; lobes 0.7–2 × 0.5–1.5 mm, elliptic-or ovate-to lanceolate-triangular, occasionally subulate, obtuse or acute, ± acuminate.
Branches with whitish to ± brownish, scurfy tomentum, ± glabrescent, younger parts generally densely covered with bristles, these rarely lacking (see note).
Fruits often numerous, shining red when ripe, becoming brownish-olive-green when dry, (7)8–10(11) mm in diameter, globose, glabrous, appearing edible.
Stamen filaments 0.3–0.5 mm long; anthers 2.5–3.5 mm long, lanceolate-elliptic in outline, slightly tapering to the apex, somewhat incurved.
Flowers 5(6)-merous, ± nodding; pedicels 5–12 mm long, slender, in fruit elongating to 16 mm, somewhat thickened to the apex, ± erect.
Seeds numerous, 3 × 2 mm, compressed, ± reniform.
