Lyctoplesium pubiflorum Grisebach, Syst. Bemerk. 
(1854) 40. 
Latua venenosa R.A. Philippi in Bot. Zeit. 88 (1858) 
24. 
Shrub to small tree 2-10 m. tall, with one to several 
main trunks 3-25 cm. in diameter, spreading upward 
and outward from base. Bark thin, streaked with corky, 
longitudinal fissures, becoming somewhat rough, reddish 
to greyish brown. Branches smooth, grey, armed with 
spines. Branchlets cylindrical, those of current year’s 
growth covered with yellowish brown pubescence, gla- 
brescent. Spines erect, arising as modified branches in 
leaf axils, rigid, up to 2 em. long, usually with a small 
leaf at the base and one or two minute cataphylls towards 
the apex. Leaves alternate, fascicled on short shoots or 
scattered on long shoots, simple, narrow-elliptic to 
oblong-lanceolate, apically acuminate, marginally entire 
to erose-serrate, basally attenuate, 3.5—-12 cm. long, 1.5- 
4 cm. wide, pilose, glabrescent, dark to light green 
above, paler green beneath; petiole usually short, 2 mm. 
long, pilose, glabrescent. Stipules absent. Peduncle 
solitary, arising in the axil of a spine and its basal leaf, 
erect, 1-flowered, 5—9(20) mm. long, tomentose, with a 
series of overlapping bud scales at the base; scales ciliate, 
ovate, about 2 mm. long. Calyx inferior, gamosepalous, 
5-parted, campanulate, persistent, somewhat accrescent, 
8-10 mm. long, rugulose with tomentose pubescence, 
pale green to purplish, lobes valvate, acute, triangular, 
erect, about 8mm. long: calyx in fruit 11—-16 mm. long, 
splitting irregularly. Corolla much larger than calyx, 
gamopetalous, 5-parted, regular, elongate-urceolate, in- 
flated, 3.5-4 cm. long, 1.5 cm. in diameter at the mid- 
dle, densely pilose without, variably colored magenta to 
red-violet, lobes short, trilobate, recurved, about 5 mm. 
long with induplicate-valvate aestivation. Stamens 5, 
[ 63 | 
