Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Stout perennial herbs.

Stems: From a short, stout, woolly stem up to several cm long, sparsely to moderately woolly with long reddish brown hairs.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Leaves basal, spiral. Blades narrowly elliptic to oblong–oblanceolate, 7.5–22 cm long, (0.7–)1.5–3.2 cm wide; blades undifferentiated from petioles. Apex acute or bluntly acute. Base attenuate. Surfaces glabrous or sometimes sparsely to moderately pilose or pilose along and near margins; basal, thick, coriaceous. Margins minutely and remotely denticulate. Usually 5–7-veined, the veins subparallel. Petioles winged 0–9 cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in scapes 20–90 cm long, spikes (7–)15–28 cm long, glabrous to moderately pilose, flowers moderately to densely crowded, somewhat less so toward base, each one strongly ascending. bracts ovate–elliptic, 2.1–2.6 mm long, outer surface ciliate and sometimes sparsely pilose, bracteoles absent. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx of 4 sepals, subequal, distinct, elliptic to elliptic–ovate, 1.6–2.2 mm long, scarious except for the green midrib, glabrate or ciliate. Corolla salverform, 4-lobed, scarious, persistent in fruit, the tube covering the upper part of the capsule lobes spreading, 1–1.1 mm long. Stamens 4, alternate with the corolla tubes; filaments adnate to corolla tube; anthers long–exserted, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, 2-carpellate, with as many cells; ovules (at least 6), placentation axile; style 1, terminal, slender; stigmas protruding from buds.

Fruit: Capsules oblong–ellipsoid; 2.6–4 mm long; exserted from calyx; dehiscent at a point ca. ⅔ to base; circumscissile at or below the middle; enclosed in the persistent calyx. Seeds 4–6; dull black; 1–1.1 mm long; winged at one end; with well–developed; firm; translucent endosperm.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Mesic to dry shrubland; often in cracks in lava.

Elevation Range: 1,800–1,950 m.