Sore-mouth-bush

Palicourea tomentosa is a large shrub or small tree in the family Rubiaceae native to the Neotropics, ranging from southern Mexico through Central America and the Andes south to Bolivia, Brazil, and northern Argentina, where it grows in moist to wet lowland and pre-montane forest understorey. The species typically reaches 2 to 5 metres in height with slender branches densely clothed in soft tomentose hairs that give the plant its specific epithet. Leaves are opposite, simple, elliptic to oblong, 10 to 25 centimetres long and 4 to 10 centimetres wide, with prominent pinnate venation, dark green and pubescent above and densely yellow-tomentose beneath. The stipules between the petiole bases are interpetiolar and bifid. The inflorescence is a terminal erect panicle with showy, persistent bright red bracts subtending small, narrow, tubular yellow flowers about 1.5 centimetres long that are pollinated by hermit hummingbirds. Fruits are small ovoid drupes that ripen from green through purple to black.