Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Deciduous perennial herbs dying back to enlarged fleshy roots in dry seasons.

Stems: Stems often swollen at the nodes, terete (cylindrical), 4–angled or 4–ridged, lower portions of stems glabrous, glabrous or occasionally sparsely puberulent in the inflorescence, stems 2–10 dm long, ascending to sprawling, usually multi–stemmed from the base, often unbranched above, terete (cylindrical), internodes usually purple, roots fleshy, thickened.

Roots: Roots fleshy and thickened.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades broadly elliptic to broadly elliptic–ovate, 7–22 cm long, 4–11 cm wide. Apex acuminate. Base leaf bases often connate around the stem, base broadly obtuse to truncate and somewhat folded. Upper surfaces glabrous; lower surfaces sparsely puberulent, especially on the veins, the hairs 0.2– 0.6 mm long, mostly antrorsely curved to weakly appressed, slightly shorter on the surface; blades thin or rarely slightly thickened, membranous, dull dark green. Margins inconspicuously and irregularly serrulate, the teeth more prominent toward the apex, moderately covered with antrorsely curved or hooked hairs, 0.2––0.6 mm long, usually longer toward the leaf base. 5–7 conspicuous principal veins. Petioles 0.3–2 cm long, weakly channeled, purple. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescence terminal, with (28–) 100–205 flowers, ca. 25–57 cm long, large, diffuse; bracts green, broadly ovate to ovate or the smallest ones lanceolate, those of central axis 7–60 mm long, those of branches and flowers 2–18 mm long, usually purple, glabrous to ciliate toward the base; pedicels (10–) 20–35 mm long, elongating slightly in fruit, filiform, terete (cylindrical). Flowers bisexual (perfect). Sepals 2–2.7 mm long, ovate, green turning purple above the base or in upper part near the apex, thin and somewhat translucent, strongly reflexed in the proximal ¼, producing a large transverse bulge, distal part strongly and deeply navicular and becoming inrolled in distal ½, oriented at 5° to 60° angle to the pedicel, sometimes the distal ½ curved outward at a 90° angle, glabrous, margins scarious, apex attenuate. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 10; filaments dimorphic, the antisepalous whorl 3.7–4.7 mm long, the alternate whorl 2.8–4 mm long; anthers of the antisepalous whorl 0.4–0.7 mm long, those of the alternate whorl 0.4–0.7 mm long, pale yellow. Ovary superior, 1-celled; ovule placentation free-central; styles 3–5 (–6), often variable in number on the same plant.

Fruit: Capsules 2.5–3 mm long; ovoid; apex purple. Seeds highly variable in number; (1–) 4–25 (–35) [average 12 per capsule]; ca. 0.8–0.9 mm long; orbicular–reniform; compressed; the surface transversely rugose; perisperm starchy; hard or rarely soft; true endosperm absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Rocky sites and bases of cliffs in mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 490–1160 m.