墨脱玉叶金花 mo tuo yu ye jin hua

Shrubs, 1-2 m tall; branches villous, terete, drying dark green. Leaves opposite; petiole 1-5 cm, densely villous; blade drying papery, elliptic, 13-15 × 6-7.5 cm, adaxially subglabrous, abaxially hirsute with pubescence denser along veins, base narrowly cuneate and decurrent on petiole, apex acuminate; secondary veins 7-9 pairs, tertiary venation indistinct; stipules apparently persistent, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate, 15-20 mm, densely villous, shortly 2-lobed. Inflorescence laxly to rather congested-cymose, generally dichotomous, ca. 10 cm wide, branched 3 or 4 times, villous becoming glabrescent, pedunculate. Flowers subsessile, biology not noted. Calyx with hypanthium portion turbinate, ca. 5 mm, hirtellous; lobes linear, 3-4 mm, sparsely villous, with 1 lobe on ca. 5 flowers per inflorescence expanded into white calycophyll, blade elliptic, ca. 7.5 × 4 cm, base obtuse to cuneate, apex shortly acuminate. Corolla yellow, tubular-salverform, outside densely pale yellow strigose; tube ca. 18 mm; lobes ovate-lanceolate, ca. 6 × 3 mm, abaxially carinate, adaxially densely orange-yellow papillose, long caudate. Capsule or berry globose, ca. 6 mm in diam., smooth, glabrous, with calyx limb persistent. Fl. Aug.

● Broad-leaved forests or thickets on mountain slopes; 300-1700 m. Xizang (Mêdog), Yunnan (Gongshan).

The protologue described the fruit of this species as capsular, which would be anomalous in Mussaenda, although H. H. Hsue and H. Wu (in FRPS 71(1): 293. 1999) described it as a berry.