大花木巴戟 da hua mu ba ji

Erect shrubs, to 2 m tall; branches glabrous or subglabrous, subquadrangular, green or pale green. Leaves opposite, sometimes crowded at ends of branches; petiole 2-3 cm, glabrous or subglabrous; blade drying submembranous to membranous, pale green and matte on both surfaces, oblong-oblanceolate, oblong-lanceolate, or oblanceolate, 13-23 × 6-10 cm, glabrous or pilosulous abaxially, base cuneate to attenuate, margin sometimes weakly repand or sinuate, apex acuminate or obtuse then abruptly acuminate; secondary veins 8-10 pairs, apparently without domatia; stipules interpetiolar, ovate, semicircular, or subcordate, acute or 2-lobed. Inflorescence terminal or axillary; peduncle 1, ca. 2 cm, glabrous; heads 1 per peduncle, subglobose, many flowered; bracts encircling flowers in 1 or 2 whorls, 3-6 per whorl, subulate. Flowers shortly fused at base, biology not noted. Calyx limb truncate to sinuate. Corolla white, slenderly funnelform to salverform, glabrous outside; tube ca. 32 mm, glabrous inside; lobes 5, lanceolate to ligulate, ca. 13 mm. Infructescences and fruit unknown. Fl. Apr-May.

● Sparse forests, shady thickets; ca. 700 m. S Yunnan.

The bracts arranged in whorls subtending the flowers are notable and probably distinctive for the species; however, these bracts are not shown in the illustrations of this species in the protologue nor in the additional figure presented in the FRPS Morinda treatment (Y. Z. Ruan, loc. cit.: 184, t. 46, f. 5).