Lobelia persicifolia Lam.

Lobelia persicifolia Lara. Encyc. 3: 584. 1791
Rapuntium persicifolium Presl, Prodr. Mon. Lob. 27. 1836. Tupa persicaefolia A. DC. in DC. Prodr. 7: 395. 1839. Dorlmannia persicifolia Kuntze, Rev. Gen. 973. 1891.
Stem erect, simple or branched, woody and up to 0.7 cm. in diameter at base, 60-130 cm. high, glabrous, often roughened and ridged below; leaves few-50 (sometimes more, the lower ones early deciduous), spreading, thin and papery, smooth and glabrous, irregularly serrate or sinuate-dentate with callose-tipped teeth, these mostly 2-4 per cm. (the margin and type of dentation very variable, the teeth often larger and fewer near base), the blades 2-3 cm. broad by 10-21 cm. long, usually about 5-8 times as long as wide, mostly narrowly elliptic, varying to lanceolate, usually long-tapering to base and apex, the latter often arcuate, the base sometimes merely acute, narrowed to a definite petiole 1-2.5 cm. long; inflorescence erect, leafy, the flowers axillary to the uppermost 6-25 leaves, the inflorescence thus occupying the terminal 7-21 cm. of the axis; pedicels red (always?), slender (less than 1 mm. in diameter), flexuous, often more or less appressed-upright, but sometimes widely spreading, glabrous, 30-62 mm. long (average about 45 mm.), each with a pair of filiform green decurrent bracteoles 2-10 mm. long, about the middle or below it; flower inverted, mostly 37-48 mm. long, including h>^)anthium; corolla red, glabrous, the tube 25-30 mm. long, strongly arcuate and dilated at base, but not fenestrate, the lobes not spreading, all about equal, the two upper 7-11 mm. long, linear, abruptly narrowed to a subulate tip, the three lower 5-9 mm. long; filaments red, united more than half their length, 23-32 mm. long; anther-tube gray, 4.5-6.0 mm. long, all 5 anthers tufted at the tip; hypanthium in anthesis conic or cup-shaped, in fruit conic, turbinate, or broadly cup-shaped, 7-8 mm. across at the widest point; capsule about two-thirds inferior, 7-10 mm. long; calyx-lobes linear-subulate, glabrous, red, 7-15 mm. long, often spreading widely in fruit, with a deltoid base expanded to at least 3 mm. wide; seeds ellipsoid-lenticular, little longer than wide, shallowly depressed-reticulate, about 0.8 mm. long.
Type locality: Guadeloupe, Badier (Paris, photo.!). Distribution: Guadeloupe, at elevations up to about 1000 ni.