Description
FLOWER PARTS
- Pedicel : stout, subtuberculate, pendant, hirtellous-canescent, 5-13mm long, dull green
- Ovary : cylindrical, subtuberculate, 10-11mm long x 3-4mm wide, hirtellous, light green
- Tube color : dull scarlet or orange red
- Tube shape : narrowly funnelform, firmly thick-spongy, 1-2 mm thick when fresh, hirtellous and finely striated-tuberculate outside, densely villous inside in the lower half
- Tube dimensions : 34-50mm long x 3.5-5.5mm wide and slightly bulbous at the base, narrowed-3-4.5mm wide above the nectary, then gradually widened above until 5-9mm wide at the rim
- Sepal color upper : dull scarlet or orange red becoming dull white or greenish toward the tip
- Sepal color lower :
- Sepal shape : similarly thick-tuberculate, triangular, buds tetragonous in transection, 1 to 2 mm wider at the base than the rim of the tube and with small protuberances at the base of adjacent sepals
- Sepal tips : spreading to divergent at anthesis, obtuse or shortly pointed
- Sepal dimensions : 14-18mm long x 6-9mm wide
- Corolla opening color : dark red
- Corolla mature color :
- Corolla shape : subtrullate, margin slightly undulate, spreading to slightly recurved at anthesis
- Corolla silhouette :
- Petal margins :
- Corolla dimensions : 14-19mm long x 4-7mm wide
- Nectary : light green, irregularly quadri-lobed, 1.5-2mm high, about 1mm thick, often with a few erect, stiff hairs on the top
- Stamens :
- Filaments : red, 9-12mm x 5-8mm long
- Anthers : oblong, 3-4.5mm long x 1.5-2mm wide
- Pistil :
- Style : orange red, glabrous
- Stigma : capitate, four-parted at the apex, 2.5-3mm long x about 2mm wide, red-light pink, exserted 4-9mm beyond the anthers
MISCELLANEOUS
- Flower :
- Flowers : few to many in upper, leafy nodes or in terminal to subterminal, leafy racemes, rachis 2 to 10 cm long
- Flower size :
- Flower display :
- Flower bud :
- Fruit : ellipsoid, 12-15mm long x 8-10mm wide, subtuberculate, green to flushed purple
- Seed : 1.5mm long x 0.6-0.8mm wide
- Habit : shrub with reddish young branches, ridged with the same number of ridges as leaves in the whorl
- Hardiness:
- Height : 1.5-4 m
- Light/Climate :
- Optimal light conditions :
- Remarks :
- Named : becoming grey, greyish’
- Lookalikes :
- Year (of first description) : 1845
- Botanist : Bentham
- Authors : Bentham 1845
- Original publication : Pl. Hartw. 179 1845
- Habitat : infrequent in wet subpáramo or upper cloud forest in Cauca, Huila, and Nariño Provinces
- Elevation : 2800-3350
- Native country : Colombia
- Synonyms :
- Gametic chromosome number n = 11
FOLIAGE
- Leaves : three to five-verticillate, mostly quaternate, firmly membranous, petioles stout, 15 to 25 mm long, hirtellous, dull purple, stipules 0.8 to 1 mm thick when fresh, lingulate to subterete in transection, subulate at the tip, 1.5 to 2 mm long, about 0.8 mm wide, divergent, occasionally connate, hirtellous, subpersistent
- Foliage color upper side : medium to dark green and strigillose
- Foliage color lower side : hirtellous to densely strigillose and paler green, with the midvein prominent and reddish
- Leaf dimensions : 4.5-10cm long x 2-5cm wide
- Leaf shape : (narrowly) elliptic to (ob-)ovate
- Leaf margin : subentire to denticulate
- Leaf tip : acute to rounded
- Leaf base : acute to rounded
- Pubescence :
- Veins : secondary veins 8 to 15 on either side of the midvein
- Stems :
- Branches : canescent to hirtellous, reddish, 38 mm thick, and tan older branches with exfoliating bark