Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Branched shrubs 3–8 dm tall.
Stems:
Branches pilose (hairs antrorse), leafy at apex to ca. 20 cm below.
Roots:
Leaves:
Leaves simple.
Alternate.
Blades narrowly elliptic to lanceolate, 3–7 cm long, 0.6–2 cm wide.
Apex acute to slightly acuminate.
Base attenuate.
Blades coriaceous.
Margins crenulate–serrulate, margins whitish ciliate.
Conspicuously reticulate-veined; veins of upper surface slightly impressed, those of lower surface slightly raised, sparsely appressed pilose, at least along veins.
Petioles 0.3–1.2 cm long, appressed whitish pilose (hairs antrorse).
Stipules slightly asymmetrical, ovate, 2.5–4mm long, the raised, thickened midrib appressed whitish puberulent, becoming noticeably brownish dry and membranous toward margins.
Flowers:
Flowers solitary; peduncles whitish puberulent, 2–8 mm long.
Flowers fragrant, bisexual (perfect), axillary, on short pedicels; pedicels whitish puberulent, 2–4 mm long, bracts 2.3–3.2 mm long.
Calyx of 5 sepals, lanceolate, 4.5–6 mm long, becoming membranous toward the whitish ciliate margins.
Corolla of 5 petals, greenish yellow, upper petals ca. 14–15 mm long, the lobes ca. 5.5 mm long, lateral petals ca. 14–16 mm long, the lobes ca. 6 mm long, lower petal 16–18 mm long (as short as 12 mm long when dried), the lobe ca. 7 mm long, creased down the middle.
Stamens 5, subequal; filaments ca. 1.3 mm long; anthers ca. 1.2–1.3 mm long, connective of abaxial Stamens prolonged into an apiculate appendage; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits.
Ovary superior, 3-carpellate, 1-celled, placentation parietal; ovules anatropous; style 1, filiform, sigmoid, apex enlarged and excavated.
Fruit:
Capsules green; tinged dull red; ellipsoid; 3–valved; 12–16 mm long; tipped with the persistent style.
Seeds olive with a dark spot near the middle; obovoid; 2.8–3 mm long; ca. 2 mm in diameter; with fleshy; oily endosperm.
Ploidy:
Habitat:
Occurring in dry shrubland dominated by <i>Dodonaea</i>; <i>Sophora</i>; <i>Wikstroemia</i>; and <i>Santalum</i>.
Elevation Range:
900–1030 m.