Coutarea hexandra (Jacq.) K. Schum.

Coutarea hexandra (Jacq.) K. Schumann, in Mart. Fl Bras. 6 6 : 196. 1889.
Portlandia hexandra Jacq. Enum. PI. Carib. 16. 1760.
Coutarea speciosa Aubl. PI. Guian. 314. 1775.
Coutarea flavescens Moc. & Sesse; DC. Prodr. 4: 350. 1830.
Portlandia speciosa Baillon, Hist. PI. 7: 381. 1880.
Coutarea hexandra pubescens K. Schumann, in Mart. Fl. Bras. 6 6 : 198. 1889.
Shrub or small tree, sometimes 5 meters high or more, the branchlets stout, brown or gray, whitish-lenticellate, usually glabrous, sometimes short-pilose, the internodes usually elongate; stipules deltoid, 2-4 mm. long, acute, mucronate, ciliate; petioles slender or stout, 3-11 mm. long; leaf-blades ovate, elliptic-ovate, oval, or ovate-oval, 4.5-12 cm. long, 2-6 cm. wide, rounded to acute at the base, usually acutely cuspidate-acuminate at the apex, sometimes acute or obtusely short-acuminate, bright-green, concolorous, glabrous above or sparsely short-pilose, the venation impressed, glabrous beneath or sometimes densely short-pilose, the venation prominent, the lateral veins few, distant, arcuate, the margin plane; flowers mostly in 3-flowered terminal and axillary cymes, sometimes solitary, the pedicels short, stout, bracteolate at the base, the bractlets lanceolate or subulate; hypanthium glabrous or sparsely puberulent, sometimes densely pilose, 4-6 mm. long; calyx-lobes 6, lance-subulate or linearsubulate, 5-12 mm. long; corolla white or yellowish, tinged with purple below, the tube gibbous, 1-2 cm. thick in the throat, terete, the 6 lobes contorted, ovate, acute or obtuse, usually about one third as long as the tube, sometimes shorter; stamens usually exceeding the corolla-lobes, the anthers yellow, 1.4-2 cm. long; capsule oblong-obovoid or oval-obovoid, 2.5-3.5 cm. long, about 2 cm. wide, strongly compressed, shallowly bisulcate, dark-brown, lustrous, whitishlenticellate; seeds oval or orbicular, 8-10 mm. long, brown, the body 2-4 mm. long, broadly winged, the wing entire or undulate.
Type locality: [In thickets, Cartagena, Colombia]. Distribution: Chiapas to Panama, southward to Peru and Argentina.