Trees to 10 m tall; twigs reddish tomentose, becoming blackish and scurfy with age, subtended by conspicuous leaf scars at the nodes. Leaves obovate, sometimes broadly so, apically short-acuminate with a well-defined drip tip, basally obtuse or rounded, the margins entire or minutely serrulate, slightly cori-aceous, glabrous above and the midvein impressed, beneath softly ferrugineous with long wavy and curly yellowish and reddish brown hairs, the venation ele-vated, 6-8 prominent lateral veins on each side of the midvein; petiole 5-8 mm long, the glabrous upper side deeply impressed and the tomentose lower surface subterete. Inflorescences axillary, several-flowered congested fascicles; peduncles, pedicels, and bracts tomentose but mostly obscure. Flowers large for the genus, ca. 12 mm long; sepals ca. 5, rotund, 2 mm wide, 4 mm long, sericeous outside and ciliate; petals pinkish, reddish or bluish, ca. 6, 11 mm long, 5 mm wide, thick, dorsally canescent, apically cuculate, connate only at the very base but held together by the adnate staminal column, only the inner 4 with stamens; stamens ca. 95, adnate ca. 5 mm to the bottom of the corolla, the filaments separating into thick, straplike elements terminated by a short, ca. 1 mm long, slender stipe, the anthers rounded, ca. 0.5 mm across, the filaments glabrous, minutely muricate dorsally; ovary ca. 5-locular, emergent ca. 1/3 its length, densely tomentose on the flat top, the style basally hirsute with long, yellowish, acicular hairs, minutely tuberculate overall, the stigma an irregular capitate mass.
Home
