Descr. A leafy bush, three to six feet high, quite glabrous 
except the youngest parts, which are slightly hairy ; branches 
bluntly 4-angled, red. Leaves sessile, rarely opposite, usually 
whorled in threes and fours, three to five inches long, lanceo- 
late or elliptic-lanceolate, acuminate, acute at the base, 
toothed, bright green and shining with a red mid-rib, often 
bullate between the many depressed veins. Flowers about 
one inch long, in terminal pendent crowded leafy panicled 
racemes ; bracts or floral leaves a quarter to three-quarter 
inch Jong, lanceolate, sessile ; pedicels shorter than or 
equalling the ovary. Calyzx-tube narrow, slightly swollen 
at the green base, red above and funnel-shaped ; lobes much 
shorter than the tube, triangular-lanceolate, acute, spreading, 
greenish. Petals shorter than the calyx-tube, broadly 
ovate, obtuse, blood-red. Stamens included. Ovary green, 
elliptic ; stigma globose, 4-lobed. Berry oblong, half an inch 
long, 4-grooved. Seeds obliquely cuneate.—/. D. H. 
Fig. 1, Flower :—magnijied. 
