Description: Erect to generally scandent or climbing shrubs to 4 m tall; branchlets wine purple, glabrous to puberulent, rarely densely pilose. Leaves opposite, or in whorls of 3, 4, or rarely 5, firmly membranous to coriaceous, (narrowly) elliptic-ovate to ovate, 3-14 x 1-6 cm, apex acute to acuminate, base acute to rounded, glabrous to pilose on both surfaces; margin entire to gland-serrate, secondary veins 4-10 per side; petioles 3-4 cm long; stipules triangular, membranous to thick-stubby, 0.8-3 mm long, 0.4-3 mm wide, adjacent ones sometimes fused, usually recurved. Flowers solitary or rarely in pairs in upper leafaxils; pedicels pendulous, 1-4 cm long, usually wine red. Ovary oblong, 5-12 mm long; floral tube cylindrical-fusiform, glabrous to puberulent or pilose outside. Sepals 2-4 cm long, connate at the base and free above, lobes 3-9 mm wide at base, spreading to recurved or reflexed at anthesis; tube and sepals red or rose. Petals purple, obovate to spathulate, 1-2 cm long. Filaments red-purple; anthers oblong, purplish, 2-5 mm long, 1-2 mm wide. Style glabrous to pubescent; stigma clavate, exserted beyond the anthers. Berry oblong, ellipsoid or globose, 10-27 mm long, 9-13 mm thick, dark purple when ripe; seeds oblong to narrowly triangular, laterally compressed, 1.6-2.5 mm long, 1-1.6 mm wide.

Habit: Shrub

Flowering & Fruiting: January-

District(s): Idukki, Wayanad

Medicinal:

Habitat: Introduced as garden plant, now running wild along the roadsides and scrub jungles in the high ranges

Distribution: Native of South America

Aquatic: No

Epiphyte(s): No

Saprophyte: No

Stem parasite: No

Root parasite: No

Flower colour(s): Red

Weed: No

Monocot/Dicot: Dicotyledonous Plants

Exotic: Yes

Garden: Yes

Edible: No

Vegetable: No

Endemic to:

IUCN status:

Altitude:

Localities:

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