Hoffmannia vesiculifera Standl.

Hoffmannia vesiculifera Standley, Field Mus. Publ. Bot. 4: 285
1929. Suffrutescent or herbaceous, suberect, the stem 10 cm. high, 4 mm. thick, terete, densely villous with long spreading brownish many-celled hairs, densely leafy at the apex, the internodes short; stipules caducous; petioles stout, densely long-villous, 7-1 1 mm. long in the naked portion, vesiculiferous above, the vesicle inflated, reaching the base of the blade, 1-2.3 cm. long, 5-8 mm. wide, produced above the point of insertion on each side into a rounded lobe, obtuse or slightly narrowed at the base, green, densely villous; leafblades obovate-elliptic or oval-elliptic, 9-17 cm. long, 5-8 cm. wide, short-acuminate or rounded and very shortly and broadly acuminate, with acute tip, obtuse or rounded at the base, membranaceous, green above, sparsely villous with long hairs, the nerves inconspicuous, paler beneath, along the nerves densely villous with long soft fulvous multicellular hairs, the costa elevated, the lateral nerves about 10 pairs, arcuate, ascending at an acute angle, percurrent, the veinlets prominulous, reticulate; cymes long-pedunculate, with the peduncle 4-7 cm. long, lax, many-flowered, densely long-villous, the peduncles slender, 1.5-3.5 cm. long, the flowers secund, the pedicels 4-7 mm. long; hypanthium obovoid, 2.5 mm. long, villous; calyx 4-parted, long-villous; berry red, obovoid-globose, 5 mm. long, densely villous; seeds numerous, globose-obovoid, 0.4 mm. long, brown, foveolate.
Type locality: Buena Vista Camp on Chiriqui Trail, Province of Bocas delToro, Panama. Distribution: Region of the type locality, in wet forest at an elevation of 750 meters. Among North American Rnbiaceae this plant is unique in the inflated vesicles of the petioles. These probably are inhabited by ants, as in certain Melasiomalaceae with similar inflated organs.