Description: An erect bush, shrub, or undershrub, 0.5-2 m tall, strongly branched; young branches slender, grey, subtetragonal, somewhat densely and shortly pilose-pubescent or spreading-puberulent; nodes not annullate; leaves decussate-opposite or ternate, usually with small ones in their axils; petioles very slender, 2-15 mm long or even subobsolete, densely short-pubescent; leaf-blades chartaceous, uniformly dark green on both surfaces, brunnescent or nigrescent in drying, narrowly elliptic or oblanceolate to oblong-lanceolate or oblong-obovate, 3-12.5 cm long, 1-5 cm wide, apically acute to long-acuminate, basally tapering or long-acuminate, marginally entire (on smaller leaves) or (on larger leaves, often on the same plant) with 2-8 coarse, widely divergent, and acute teeth near the middle(the actual number of teeth often not the same on both sides), very minutely strigillose-puberulent above, more densely puberulent(especially on the larger venation) beneath; secondaries mostly 5-8 per side, arcuate-ascending, usually not extending directly into the teeth; inflorescence axillary and terminal, cymose, the cymes subcapitate or corymbose, small, few-or profusely many-flowered, crowded, short-pedunculate; flowers extremely large and showy, short-pedicellate or subsessile; peduncles very short and sparsely short-pubescent or obsolete; pedicels rather stoutish, 3-5 mm long, puberulent; bractlets and prophylla small, linear-setaceous, sparsely short-pubescent or puberulent; flower-buds with a deflexed apex, comma-shaped; calyx 5-6 mm long, split to about 1/3 its length, somewhat pilose-pubescent; corolla very large and showy, expanding in the evening and dropping off the next morning, white or yellowish-white, brightly shiny, tubular, 10-13 cm long, circinnate in bud, unrolling and elongating rapidly, the tube 7-11.5 cm long, externally somewhat thinly glandular-pilose or pubescent, the limb about 3 cm wide, shallowly 5-lobed, all the lobes often directed forward, the median one longest; stamens red or pink to purple, 6-7 cm long; fruiting-calyx coriaceous, campanulate, about 5 mm long and wide, glabrate, nitidulous, venose with prominent veins, the rim sharply 5-lobed with narrowly triangular and spreading lobes; fruit drupaceous, obovate, about 7 mm long and 9 mm wide, dark purple when ripe, conspicuously 4-lobed, but usually only 2-seeded, nigrescent in drying.

Habit: Shrub

Flowering & Fruiting: Throughout the year

District(s): All Districts

Medicinal:

Habitat: Grown as garden plant

Distribution: Native of tropical Africa

Aquatic: No

Epiphyte(s): No

Saprophyte: No

Stem parasite: No

Root parasite: No

Flower colour(s): White

Weed: No

Monocot/Dicot: Dicotyledonous Plants

Exotic: Yes

Garden: Yes

Edible: No

Vegetable: No

Endemic to:

IUCN status:

Altitude:

Localities:

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