Stout, suffrutescent herbs, shrubs or trees 1-8 m tall; stems erect, to 15 cm in diam., unbranched or if branching then branched from the base or above, subterete to subquadrangular, green to dark purple or reddish brown, Panamat plants some-times nearly glabrous but immature branches occasionally pubescent to pilose as in Costa Rican populations, the nodes glabrous; branches to 1 cm across with thicker nodes, the internodes elongate, to ca. 10 cm or more long. Leaves well spaced, usually present from the branch apex down to 4 or 5 nodes below the apex, ovate to elliptic, 14.5-32.8 cm long, 7.1-21.3 cm wide, the apex acute or acuminate, the base often oblique, acute to cordate, biserrate, above dark green, pilose or scabrous, below light green or reddish brown to purple, sparsely pilose along the veins; petioles slender, subsulcate, those of a pair joined at the node by a band of tissue across the stem, 1.5-15.5 cm long, 2-4 mm across, green to reddish, sub-pilose to glabrescent below, pilose at the union with blade. Inflorescences erect in the leafy axils, cymose, of 1-4 flowers; peduncles solitary in each axil, often equalling the petioles, green to reddish, pilose to glabrous; bracts 2, linear, to 1.5 cm long, green, pilose; pedicels to 2.5 cm long, green or red, pilose to glabrous. Flowers showy; floral tube turbinate to acute, ca. 5 mm long and wide, green or reddish, pilose or glabrous, the veins prominent and extending to the tips of the calyx lobes; calyx erect, the tube 1.1-2.2 cm long, ca. 1 cm in diam., green or red-dish below, often becoming reddish above, the outside often glabrous, rarely tomentose, the inside densely pilose, the lobes triangular, erect, 0.2-1.1 cm long, 0.4-0.6 cm broad at the base, green or reddish at least toward the serrate margins, the veins prominent, the apex acute to acuminate; corolla salmon red or orange outside and orange to yellow inside, reddish to maroon or purple spots at the mar-gin of the limb, the tube 5.5-7.0 cm long, ca. 0.8 cm broad at the base, becoming ca. 2.5 cm at the throat, outside sparsely pilose, the many-celled hairs becoming more dense toward the limb, the inside pilose at the base, above sparsely pilose with few-celled hairs to glabrous, the limb 5-lobed, subbilabiate, the lobes flaring, obovate or suborbiculate, nearly equal, 0.8-1.2 cm long, 1.2-2.2 cm wide, the margin erose, glandular pubescent or glabrescent; stamens adnate to the base of the corolla tube, the filaments connate at the base, 5-6 cm long, 1-2 mm broad at base, narrowed toward the apex, reddish, glabrous, the anthers divergent, co-herent by their apices into a ring, each 2.0-4.5 mm long, 1-4 mm wide, the connective reddish, glabrous, staminode ca. 5 mm long, sterile; disc glands 2, or 1 and bilobed, posterior, pubescent; ovary apex pilose, the style 5-7 cm long, ca. 2 mm in diam., reddish, densely pilose at the base, sparsely pilose above, the stigma stomatomorphic, pubescent. Fruit surrounded by the accrescent floral tube and topped by the persistent calyx, globose or ovoid, ca. 1 cm in diam., green to yellow or brown, glabrescent; seeds ca. 0.5 mm long. Chromosomes n = 10 (Davidse, 1970, based on material from Costa Rica).
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