多脉玉叶金花 duo mai yu ye jin hua

Shrubs, 2-3 m tall; branches terete to angled, densely white pubescent to glabrescent. Leaves opposite; petiole ca. 3 cm, sparsely pubescent; blade drying membranous, adaxially drying pale green, abaxially gray, broadly elliptic or broadly ovate, 16-22 × 8.5-12 cm, adaxially sparsely appressed pubescent with pubescence denser on principal veins, abaxially glabrescent except densely appressed pubescent on principal veins, base acute, apex acute; secondary veins 11 or 12 pairs; stipules ovate-lanceolate, ca. 13 mm, acuminate and shortly 2-lobed. Inflorescence congested-cymose, ca. 4 × 8 cm, densely pale gray pilose, pedunculate or sessile and tripartite; bracts lanceolate, ca. 9 mm; pedicels ca. 1 mm. Flowers pedicellate, biology not noted. Calyx sparsely pubescent; hypanthium portion urceolate to ellipsoid, ca. 2.5 mm; lobes lanceolate, ca. 2 mm, with 1 lobe in ca. 3 flowers per inflorescence expanded into calycophyll, blade ovate, ca. 4 × 2.1 cm, densely pubescent along veins on both surfaces, base broadly cuneate, stipe ca. 19 mm, apex acute. Corolla pale blue, salverform, outside densely pubescent; tube ca. 23 mm, inside densely yellow clavate puberulent at upper part; lobes orbicular-ovate, ca. 2.5 mm, adaxially sparsely yellow papillose, mucronate. Berry globose, ca. 5 × 5 mm. Fl. May.

● Thickets, jungles; ca. 1500 m. S Yunnan.

The blue flowers, the lack of barbate pubescence in the throat of the tubular corolla (according to the protologue figure), and the apparently exserted stigmas (all these features are illustrated or described in the protologue) are quite anomalous features in Mussaenda.