Herb to 1 m, stems stout, glabrous, soft, drying green with conspicuous furrows. Leaves to 30 cm long and 15 cm broad, obovate, apically acuminate, basally obtuse or acute, membranaceous, glabrous when expanded but with minute, stout, simple hairs when emerging, principal veins 5-9 on each side of the midvein, slender, stramineous and elevated beneath; the petioles 3-5 cm long, glabrous, slightly clasping at the base. Inflorescences corymbose or sub-umbellate on a nearly straight, erect, 3-5 cm long peduncle, flushed with purple and bearing a regularly spaced, open cicatrix along one side from apex to base; pedicels slender, glabrous, purple and ca. 10 mm long but becoming yellowish or green, 20 cm long and thickening upwards in fruit. Flowers tetramerous, the calyx purple, cyathiform, truncate, 2 mm long, with scattered white, crumpled simple hairs, after anthesis becoming conspicuously long pilose with eglandular but perhaps viscid hairs, attaining 7-10 mm and loosely enveloping the fruit, tardily splitting in about 3 sutures to expose the fruit; the corolla yellowish, 5-7 mm long, outside with minute simple hairs, glabrous within, the united portion tubular, exceeding the calyx, lobed about halfway down, the lobes obtuse, the stamens inserted near the top of the corolla tube, the filaments ca. 0.8 mm free, tomentose above the point of insertion, becoming broad, flattened, and erose margined in the lower portion of the corolla tube, the anthers 3.5 mm long, light yellow with a prominent, light colored apicule, slightly exserted; the stigma small, exserted ca. 2 mm beyond the anthers. Fruit a glabrous orange berry 10 mm across, ultimately filling and rupturing the enveloping calyx; the seeds fabiform, 2.5 mm across, the surface a reticulum of polygonal cells, yellow, green or stramineous.
Home