1688 Leaflets op Philippine Botany [Vol. V, Art. 91 



thickest near the root crown, terete, crooked at the old joints, 

 wood greenish and curved with minutely checked yellowish 

 gray bark, the terminal young portion green and dirty yel- 

 lowish puberulent. Leaves horizontally spreading, flat and 

 only slightly recurved at the abruptly acuminate to caudate 

 apex, coriaceous, much paler green beneath, opposite, only a 

 few pairs toward the top, usually the basal pair larger^ 

 the larger blades 16 cm. long by 6 cm. wide across the 

 middle or a trifle below it, most of them smaller, base 

 obtuse or cuneate, entire, glabrous, drying similarly dull 

 green on both sides; midvein very sparsely puberulent, the 



4 to 6 lateral nerves ascendingly curved and tips very coarsely 

 anastomosing, reticulations minute; petiole 1 to 2 cm. long, 

 striate, finely pulverulent. Spikes erect, green, varying from 



5 to 25 cm. in length, terete, finely brown pulverulent, 

 usually 3 but often 2 or solitary, subtended at the base by 

 a smaller pair of leaves, flower bearing from below the mid- 

 dle; flowers usually in small axillary groups of two to three, 

 well scattered especially toward the base, short pedicelled; the 

 pedicels more or less subtended by a pair or a whorl of 

 lanceolate linear unequal slightly hispid paler green bracts 

 varying from 1 to 3 mm. in length; calyx similarly in color, 

 3 to 4 mm. long, setaceously lanceolate, the basal one third 

 united, hi^pidulous especially in the old state, 5-segmented, oc- 

 casionally one or more are of smaller size; corolla about 1 mm. 

 longer, tubular, constricted in the middle region, subinflated at 

 the glabrous whitish base, the lobe bearing portion somewhat 

 enlarged; lobes dingy lilac, subequal, normally 5, subrotund, 

 the exterior side as well as the middle portion of the tube 

 puberulent, imbricate in the bud, usually the inner ones 

 smaller and subglabroua on the back, 1 mm. long and 

 nearly as wide; stamens 2, fertile; filaments less than 1 mm. 

 long, erect, glabrous, inserted upon the constricted portion 

 of the corolla tube; anther cells attached at the apex, other- 

 wise free and divaricate, a trifle oblique, basal ends obtuse, 

 0.75 mm. long, usually unequal; ovary ellipsoid, glabrous, 

 2 mm. long; style short and thick, slightly hairy toward 

 the base; stigma slightly enlarged and oblique. Capsule deep 

 green, 2 cm. long, angular, pulverulent, slenderly stipitate, 

 dehiscing from the apex into 2 recurved carpels, apex rather 



