Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Plants 1.2–3.7 m tall.

Stems: Stem 0.8–2 cm diam. densely short–pubescent.

Roots: Roots mycotrophic via vesiculararbuscular mycorrhizae (Koske et al. 1992).

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate, forming a dense spherical, oblate, or cylindrical apical rosette. Blades oblanceolate, narrowly oblong, or linear, 13–44×1.4–3.9 cm, 7–19 times longer than wide. Apex acute or acuminate. Base attenuate, sometimes quite petiole-like, in other cases the differentiation of a petiole very indefinite and the leaf clearly sessile. Surfaces glabrous; blades coriaceous. Margins entire or crenulate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in racemes 4–8, each 10–30–flowered, the axis densely short–pubescent; peduncle 9–42 cm long; steri le bracts lanceolate, oblanceolate, narrowly elliptic, narrowly oblong, or linear, 24–130×4–16 mm, the margin entire, the apex acute or acuminate; rachis 12–60 cm long; floral bracts lanceolate, narrowly elliptic, or elliptic, 12–40×3–8 mm, the margin entire, crenulate, or denticulate toward the apex, the apex acute or acuminate; pedicels 16–42 mm long; bracteoles elliptic or broadly elliptic, 1.5–5 mm long; hypanthium hemispheric, campanulate, ellipsoid, or obconic, 5–9 mm long, 6–9 mm diam. 1/14–1/7 as long as the corolla. Flowers tetracyclic, bisexual (perfect), protandrous, zygomorphic, epigynous, pedicellate, resupinate, ornithophilous, large. Calyx lobes triangular, narrowly triangular, lanceolate, oblong, or narrowly oblong, erect, 5–9×1.7–4 mm, ⅗ as long as the hypanthium to ⅗ again as long, the margin entire, the apex acuminate, acute, obtuse, or rounded, sometimes apiculate. Corolla subbilabiate, yellowish green, often suffused or streaked with pink, 54–67 mm long; tube moderately to strongly curved, 31–37 mm long, 5–9 mm tall at middle, 2.5–8 mm tall at mouth, 4–7 times longer than height at middle; dorsal lobes 25–33 × 1–3. Stamens 5, antisepalous, connate distally for most of their length; Staminal column strongly exserted, emerging above or between the dorsal lobes; filament tube 52–64 mm long, 3.6–5 times longer than dorsal anthers, pubescent toward apex; anther tube 3–3. Pollen grains 41–44 μm polar diam. 27–30 μm equatorial diam. prolate, tricolporate, the exine shallowly and minutely reticulate (Selling, 1947). Ovary inferior, 2-loculed, adnate to the hypanthium, flat at apex; placentae axile; ovules numerous; style 1, slender, terete (cylindrical), with a ring of stiff white hairs near the apex; stigma 2-lobed, the lobes appressed and non–receptive as the style grows through the anther tube, pushing out pollen, after which the stigmas spread and become receptive.

Fruit: Capsules oblate; 9–17 mm long; 12–20 mm wide; 6–13 mm thick; the pores numerous and scattered over the entire lateral surface. Seeds 1.3–1.7 mm long×0.5–0.8 mm wide.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Endemic to windward Hawai‘i; from the Kohala Mountains east and south to the vicinity of Kīlauea in Ka‘ū District; growing in various lowland wet forest; montane wet shrubland; and montane wet forest communities.

Elevation Range: 610–1400 m.