Nama jamaicense L., fiddleleaf nama. Annual, taprooted, rosetted, several–stemmed at base, prostrate with basal branches mostly appressed to ground, to 3 cm tall; shoots with basal leaves and cauline leaves, cauline leaves appearing subopposite and with winged stems from decumbent bases forming 2 green wings per leaf, stiff short–hairy and with inconspicuous, colorless, subsessile to short–stalked glandular hairs, scattered nonglandular hairs sometimes > 0.5 mm long.
Stems winged, axis < 1.5 mm diameter, wings to 1.5 mm wide, internodes short in initial basal cluster or to 17 mm long on rapidly growing lateral branches, green or tinged purplish red, short–hirsute and ascending with upward–pointing hairs to reclining (never strictly strigose), hair bases somewhat swollen.
Leaves alternate with blades oriented to upper side (on condensed shoots, when young appearing as in pairs), simple, petiolate to 45 mm long with margins conspicuously decurrent, without stipules; petiole 2–stronly flattened and indistinct from blade, to 4 mm wide, midvein white and densely short–hairy; blade obovate to spatulate, fully expanded to 37 × 10—20 mm, dull, long–tapered at base grading into petiole, entire and at maturity often wavy and purple–red on margins, obtuse to rounded at tip, pinnately veined with principal veins somewhat sunken on upper surface and raised on lower surface
Inflorescence flowers solitary, axillary, with 1 flower and 1 shoot per node, not 1—sided, buds and open flowers never coiled at tip, stiff short–hairy and glandular–hairy; bract subtending inflorescence = cauline leaf; bractlets absent; pedicel cylindric, at anthesis ca. 1 mm long increasing to 3 mm long and ± straight in fruit, with short–hairy and with stalked glandular hairs.
Flower bisexual, radial, 2.5—3 mm across; calyx 5–lobed but fused only at base, green, with raised midvein, short–hairy and short glandular–hairy; tube cup–shaped, < 0.5 mm long, aging reddish; appendages absent; lobes subequal, at anthesis to 4.8 mm long increasing somewhat in fruit, with raised midvein; corolla 5–lobed, sparsely short–hairy and short glandular–hairy on exposed outer surface; tube broadly cylindric, to 5 × 2—2.5 mm, whitish at base then yellowish green below midpoint to pale pink above (white in young bud), with 20 or more fine, purplish veins, lacking appendages; lobes spreading, hemi–circular, to 0.8 mm long, pink aging lavender, upper (inner) surface glabrous; stamens 5, fused to corolla tube ca. 0.5 mm from base, included; filaments somewhat unequal, 2—2.5 mm long within 1 flower, often yellowish below midpoint and white above, with winglike margins (free–margin scales) to 0.9 mm from base and above cylindric and tapered to tip, glabrous; anthers ± versatile, dithecal, 0.6—0.7 mm long, cream–colored, longitudinally dehiscent; pollen cream–colored; nectary disc beneath ovary, ringlike and shallowly 10–lobed, not wider than ovary base, green; pistil 1, ca. 3.5 mm long; ovary superior, blunt conic somewhat compressed front–to–back, ca. 2 mm long, green, with scattered, short glandular hairs and several short nonglandular hairs at top and on the base of style, 1–chambered with many ovules; style included, erect, ca. 1.5 mm long, pale green, 2–branched, the branches ascending, 0.5 mm long; stigmas terminal, truncate.
Fruit capsule, loculicidal, dehiscing by 2 valves, many–seeded, ± sausage–shaped and 2–lobed, slightly compressed ⊥ valves, ca. 7.5 × 2.5 × 2 mm, valves slightly bulging by seeds, with persistent style, glabrescent; fruit spreading on opposite side of leaf having the pedicel strongly bent so fruit projecting away from stem hidden by persistent calyx to 14 mm long.
Seed caplike deeply indented on 1 face, ± 0.3 mm, brown, light–weight, with netlike ridges and projecting cells.
A. C. Gibson