Herb or shrub to 3 m tall, glabrate. Leaves elliptical, to 25 cm long, apically acute or acuminate, basally acute or obtuse; glabrate on both sides,-beneath scurfy pubescent with degenerate dendritic hairs mostly on the veins; petioles to 2 cm long; minor leaves various. Inflorescences fascicled on obscure peduncles less than 4 mm long; the pedicels slender, glabrous or puberulent, ca. 1.5 cm long, becoming 3.5 cm long and erect in fruit. Flowers with the calyx cyathiform, narrowly campanulate or tubular, 3-6 mm long, the margin entire in flower and splitting in fruit, the calyx wall sometimes with 1-5 umbos or small teeth produced toward the base; corolla purple, white or pale yellow, 13-15 mm long, lobed 1/3-2/3 the way down, the lobes deltoid, 3 mm long, puberulent or glabrous out-side, drying dark within, the tube puberulent near the apex within; filaments less than 1 mm long, tomentose, inserted at the top of the corolla tube, the anthers 2.0-3.5 mm long, broad at the base, apiculate, the broad connective dark and con-spicuous when dry, partly exserted from the corolla tube; the style slender, gently enlarging upwards, stigma punctiform, sometimes oblique, exserted ca. 3 mm from the anthers. Fruit scarlet, obovoid or subglobose, ca. 8 mm long; seeds 2-3 mm long.