Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Decumbent or scandent vines.
Stems:
Stems weakly 4–angled, glabrous except occasionally pubescent at the nodes.
Roots:
Leaves:
Leaves simple.
Opposite.
Blades narrowly ovate or elliptic to lanceolate or oblanceolate, 2.6–5.3 cm long, 0.6–1.5 cm wide.
Apex acute or rarely obtuse.
Base acute.
Surfaces glabrous; blades membranous.
Margins serrulate.
Petioles 4–16 mm long, glabrous.
Stipules absent.
Flowers:
Flowers 2 per verticillaster, axillary or located on axillary shoots, pedicels 2–8 mm long, puberulent.
Calyx bilabiate, narrowly campanulate, 8–18 mm long, enlarging in fruit, glabrous, the teeth acute, 5–9 mm long, 1.5–3 mm wide at base, splitting longitudinally, usually persistent or sometimes only ventral 1/2 persistent.
Corolla bilabiate, apparently yellow to dull brownish pink, magenta, or red, moderately pubescent externally, glabrous within, tube narrowly funnelform, straight or slightly falcate, 1.1–1.9 cm long, upper lip 5–10 mm long, entire or 2-lobed, flat or concave, lower lip ca. 2 mm long, 3-lobed, the lobes flat or margins revolute, ovate, of similar size, distal portion of corolla sparsely to densely pubescent externally, the hairs simple or multicellular, occasionally glandular pubescent within, otherwise glabrous; nectary disk often present at base of ovary, annular or developed on anterior side only.
Stamens 4, both pairs of similar length or upper pair slightly longer, included within corolla or well–exserted beyond upper lip; filaments inserted near throat, pubescent; anthers dithecal; anther sacs divaricate, opening by longitudinal slits.
Ovary superior, 2-carpellate, each carpel longitudinally divided, placentation basal-axile; ovules 1 per ovary lobe; style 1, exserted, arising between lobes, usually cleft, diverging after anther dehiscence, shortly 2-lobed, the lobes subulate; stigmas 2.
Fruit:
Mature nutlets unknown.
Seeds with endosperm absent or scanty and oily.
Ploidy:
Habitat:
Formerly occurring in dry subalpine shrubland.
Elevation Range:
1,550–2,150 m.