Lycianthes rafatorresii

Description. Shrub (sometimes scandent), treelet, to vine, 1 - 5 (20) m tall. Indument of off-white, grey, pale yellow, or yellow-orange, uniseriate, multicellular, sessile to short-stalked, multangulate-stellate, eglandular, spreading trichomes 0.1 - 0.25 mm long, 0.25 - 0.75 mm in diameter, the rays 5 - 8 per whorl, usually straight (not crisped), not rebranched, the center of the trichome where the rays meet sometimes enlarged and spherical, the trichomes of the adaxial leaf surface often sessile and appressed to the leaf surface. Stems light green when young, (drying tan to brown), moderately to densely pubescent (appearing like dense felt), slightly compressed and ribbed when dried in a plant press, becoming brown and woody with age; upper sympodial branching points a mixture of monochasial and dichasial branching (often monochasial), the branching not divaricate. Leaves simple, the leaves of the upper sympodia usually paired, the pairs unequal in size, the larger ones with blades 4.5 - 13 x 2.5 - 6 cm, the smaller ones with blades 1.5 - 7.6 x 1 - 3.8 cm, the leaf pairs similar in shape, the blades ovate to elliptic, chartaceous to subcoriaceous, sparsely to moderately pubescent, the base cuneate (sometimes widely so), rarely rounded, sometimes oblique, the margin entire, usually irregularly undulate, the apex acute to acuminate, the petiole 0.3 - 2.5 cm long, the larger leaf blades with 4 - 6 primary veins on each side of the midvein. Flowers solitary or in groups of 2 - 6 (- 10), axillary, oriented horizontally; peduncles usually absent, sometimes a small pad forming with numerous pedicel scars, to 2 mm long; pedicels 4 - 10 mm long and erect in flower, to 17 mm long and erect in fruit, moderately to densely pubescent; calyx 2 - 4 mm long, 3 - 4 mm in diameter, campanulate, moderately to densely pubescent, the margin truncate, with 10 erect linear appendages with widened, bulbous apex, 1 - 4 mm long, emerging 0.5 - 1 mm below the calyx rim, the rim membranaceous and papery; fruiting calyx enlarged, widely bowl-shaped to rotate, 2 - 4 mm long, 6 - 10 mm in diameter, the appendages to 5 mm long; corolla 0.7 - 1.5 cm long, orientation of open corolla unknown (most likely campanulate or rotate), shallowly stellate in outline, divided 1 / 4 to 1 / 2 of the way to the base (the division increasing by tearing as the flower ages), with abundant interpetalar tissue, the adaxial side white, glabrous, the abaxial side of the lobes of unknown color, densely pubescent with multangulate-stellate, appressed trichomes; stamens unequal, straight, the four short filaments 0.5 - 1 mm long, the one long filament 2 - 3.5 mm long, glabrous, the anthers 4 - 5 mm long, lanceolate, narrowed at the tip, free of one another, yellow, sparsely pubescent on the inner face, poricidal at the tips, the pores ovate, terminal, dehiscing distally, not opening into longitudinal slits; pistil with glabrous ovary, the style 7 - 8 mm long, linear, straight, glabrous, the stigma oblong, decurrent down two sides. Fruit a berry, 8 - 15 mm long, 8 - 15 mm in diameter, globose, red-orange when mature, glabrous, lacking sclerotic granules. Seeds 40 - 100 per fruit, 2 - 3 x 2 - 3 mm, flattened, circular to depressed ovate in outline, sometimes shallowly indented on one side (<0.5 mm), thickened on the margin, yellow-orange to orange-brown, the margin darker in color than the center, the surface reticulum nearly smooth in the center with indistinct serpentine pattern and shallow luminae, the luminae much deeper on the margin.