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Family: Acanthaceae
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Woody vine; stems subquadrangular, hirsute to substrigose, the hairs upwardly curved, up to 0.26 mm. long, rigid, septate but not conspicuously so, the lower parts of the stems glabrate; leaf blades ovate to elliptic, up to 8 cm. long and 4 cm. wide, short-acuminate (the tip itself obtuse), narrowed at base, moderately firm, entire or undulate, both surfaces sparingly hirsute except the costa and lateral veins (about 5 pairs), these inconspicuous and rather densely hirsute, the hairs curved and rigid, up to 0.4 mm. long; cystoliths very obscure; petioles up to 8 mm. long, densely hirsute with rigid upwardly curved hairs; flowers borne in axillary few-flowered racemes (2-4 pairs of flow- ers), these both terminal and axillary, and borne for some distance along the stems, up to 5 cm. long; peduncles 10 to 20 mm. long, 0.75 to 1.25 mm. thick, subquadrangular, hirsute, the hairs curved, more or less spreading, up to 0.32 mm. long, the rachis similar to the peduncles, the internodes usually 10 to 15 mm. long, slender; calyx sessile or sub- sessile at the tips of the slender pedicel-like branches, these 5 to 8 mm. long, hirsute like the rachis and bearing an apical pair of oblong- ovate bracts 0.75 mm. long, 0.5 mm. wide, acute, subcarinate, spar- ingly hirsute; bracts subtending the flower-bearing branches oblong, about 3 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide, obtuse, hirsute and ciliate or the lowermost pair broader and leaflike; calyx 7 to 8 mm. long, the seg ments linear, 6.5 mm. long, 1.25 mm. wide, acute, moderately hirsute, the hairs up to 1 mm. long, ascending to upwardly subappressed or the marginal ones longer (up to 0.25 mm. long) and ascending; corollas "burnt orange, paler proximally" (Killip & Smith), 3 to 3.5 cm. long, rather densely hirsute, the hairs more or less spreading ex- cept toward base, here retrorse, up to 0.13 mm. long, some of them gland-tipped, the tube 2 mm. broad at base, narrowed at 3 mm. above base to 1.5 mm., thence enlarged, first abruptly, then gradually to 5 mm. at mouth, the lips subequal, curved, about 2 cm. long, the upper lip oblong-ovate, about 4 mm. broad near base, thence gradually narrowed to a 2-lobed tip, the lobes about 1.5 mm. long and 0.5 mm. wide, rounded at tip, the lower lip slightly spreading, oblong-ovate, about 4 mm. wide at base, 3-lobed, the lobes oblong, about 2 mm. long and 1 mm. wide, rounded at tip; stamens exserted, reaching within 2 mm. of the tip of the upper lip and partially enfolded by it, the filaments glabrous, the anthers cells curved, 2.5 mm. long, 0.5 mm. broad, glabrous, superposed and attached vertically to the connective, their lower and upper tips overlapping 1.25 mm., the lower cell calcarate, the tail blunt at tip; style slightly exceeding the lips of the corolla, glabrous except at base, here sparingly and minutely hirtel- lous, the stigma bilobed, the lobes minute and rounded; ovary glabrous; capsule not seen. Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, No. 1351865, collected in woods in the vicinity of Las Vegas, Department of Santander, Colom- bia, 2,600 to 3,000 meters altitude, December 21-23, 1926, by E. P. Killip and Albert C. Smith (No. 16091). Isotypes: GH, NY. |