Blumea 1963. 12: 93.
WFO ID: wfo-0000400479
IPNI ID: urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:332059-1
Verified by:
Erect, few-stemmed shrub or small tree to 6m, the trunk 2–3m to 5cm in diameter. Twigs 3–10mm in diameter, rounded, covered with a persistent though fragile covering of reddish-brown stellate scales; internodes 6–25cm. Leaves 4–6 together in tight pseudowhorls. Blade 8–20 x 4.5–13cm, elliptic or ovate-elliptic, rarely broadly elliptic or ovate, slightly unequal sided; apex very shortly sub-acuminate, obtuse or rounded; margin flat; base rounded; young leaves thickly covered with stellate reddish-brown scales, mature ones glabrescent above, more persistently scaly beneath especially along the main veins. Scales dendroid, with the marginal zone deeply divided and the small centre deepened or prolonged downwards into a kind of foot. Mid-vein as wide as the petiole at the base, and hardly prominent there, becoming impressed distally above and raised below; lateral veins irregular, 10–14 per side, curved and anastomosing before the edge, impressed above, prominent beneath as are the smaller veins which are distinct and reticulate towards the leaf margin; dark green and glossy above, paler and dull beneath, deeply puckered in both the fresh and dry state. Petiole 25–50 x 2.5–3.5mm, densely stellate-scaly initially. Immature buds c.20 x 20mm, bracts ovate, the outer ones sub-acuminate, the inner ones obtuse, with long appressed hairs on both sides and scaly outside. Corolla (immature) densely scaly on the tube outside, glabrous at the lobes. Fruit pedicel densely scaly, c.25 x 1.5mm. Young fruit 25mm, fusiform, densely covered with scales and pale coarse hairs, as is the style, of which only the lower part (for c.3cm) is known. Twisted valves of the mature fruit 30–55mm.
Indonesia, New Guinea (W), Arfak Mts, Mt Sarumot, Anggi Gigi Lake, once collected.
Undershrub or tree in transitional zone of Castanopsis to Nothofagus forest
Argent, G. (2006) Rhododendrons of subgenus Vireya. RHS:London. Page:77