锡兰玉心花 xi lan yu xin hua

Chomelia kotoensis Hayata; Tarenna kotoensis (Hayata) Masamune.

Shrubs, evergreen, to 2.5 m tall; branches glabrous, compressed to subquadrangular, green sometimes turning brown. Petiole 1-2.5 cm, glabrous; leaf blade drying papery, oblong-ovate to oblong-obovate, elliptic, or elliptic-oblong, 13-22 × 5-12 cm, glabrous on both surfaces, base cuneate to obtuse, apex shortly cuspidate or acute; secondary veins 7 or 8 pairs, with pilosulous domatia; stipules generally deciduous through fragmentation often leaving persistent base, shortly united around stem, triangular, 3-11 mm, glabrous, acute to acuminate. Inflorescences corymbiform to broadly pyramidal, 4-10 × 6-15 cm, many flowered, glabrous, subsessile to pedunculate; peduncle to 1 cm; bracts linear to narrowly triangular, 1-3 mm, acute; pedicels 3-8 mm. Flowers pedicellate. Calyx glabrous; hypanthium portion ellipsoid to cupular, 1-1.5 mm; limb 1-1.5 mm, lobed for ca. 1/2; lobes triangular. Corolla white, glabrous outside; tube ca. 5 mm, villous in throat; lobes narrowly oblong to spatulate, 7-12 mm, obtuse. Ovules 2 per cell. Berry globose, ca. 10 mm in diam., glabrous; seeds 2-4. Fl. Feb, Apr, fr. Sep, Dec.

Forests; below 100-600 m. Taiwan [Japan, Sri Lanka].

W. C. Chen (in FRPS 71(1): 373. 1999) described the petioles as up to 5 cm, but no petioles at all similar to this have been seen on specimens studied.