Habit
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Erect bushy shrubs or small trees 2-4.5(-6) m tall with arching-pendulous branches. Young growth usually densely canescent with fine, erect, gray-white hairs; terminal shoots 2-4 mm thick, terete to angled; older stems woody, usually hollow, 1-6 cm thick, with tan brown, splitting bark.
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Leaves
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Leaves opposite, temate, or sometimes alternate near the uppermost branching nodes, softly membranous, narrowly to broadly elliptic or ovate, acute to rounded at the base, acute to acuminate at the apex, 5-20(-23) cm long, 3-12(-15) cm wide, medium to dark matte green and pubescent to subglabrous above, pale green and ashy puberulent to densely canescent below, especially along the nerves; secondary veins (12-)15-25 on either side of the midvein, ± impressed above, prominent and often reddish below; margin glandular-denticulate. Petioles pubescent, 2-5(-7) cm long. Stipules dark, narrowly lanceolate, 0.5-1.5 mm long, ca. 0.3 mm wide, deciduous.
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Flowers
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Flowers numerous in terminal, drooping racemes or few-branched panicles, the flowers congested near the tips, rachis 5-30 cm long in flower, 15-40(-60) cm long in fruit, bracts lanceolate, reflexed, 5-25 mm long, 2-8i mm wide, pedicels slender, pendant, pubescent, 5-12(-16) mm long, ovary cylindrical, 7-11 mm long, 2-3 mm thick, strigose to puberulent, floral tube narrowly funnelform (25-)30-60(-70) mm long, 1.5-3 mm wide and slightly bulbous at the base, gradually widened above until 4-7(10) mm wide at the rim, pubescent outside, pilose inside for entire length, sepals lanceolate, acuminate, 10-20 mm long, 4-5 mm wide, tips apiculate in bud, initially spreading at anthesis, but soon becoming
totally reflexed. Tube and sepals pale pink to bright scarlet, rarely pale white, petals scarlet, acute at the apex, ± crispate with 2-3 longitudinal ridges, oblong to elliptic, 8-16(-20) mm long, 3-7(-9) mm wide, upper ~·recurved at anthesis, drying and dehiscing before the tube does. Nectary 4-lobed, green, 2-3 mm high, filaments red, 8-15 mm and 5-10 mm long, anthers oblong, 2-3.5 mm long, 1-1.5 mm wide, white, style slender, pilose from the base to the rim of the tube, stigma capitate or clavate, subtetragonous, shallowly 4-lobed at the apex, 2.5-3 mm long,
3-5 mm wide, cream, situated at the level of the antesepalous anthers or barely exserted beyond them.
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