Trichantha
(from thrix, trichos, a hair, and anthos, a blossom; alluding to the slender pedicels). ORD. Gesneraceae. A genus of two species of stove, creeping or climbing shrubs, natives of Columbia. Flowers solitary or fascicled in the axils, pedicellate, ebracteate; calyx free, coloured, ciliated-plumose, five-parted; corolla dingy violet, the limb and tube striped or angled with five longitudinal, yellow marks; limb loosely oblique, of five short, equal lobes. Leaves opposite, very different, one being ovate or oblong and acuminate, and the other dwarf. T. minor, the only species known in gardens, thrives in well-drained pots of peat, leaf mould, and sand, and is readily increased by means of cuttings, inserted in pots of sandy soil, and plunged in bottom heat.
T. minor (lesser). fl., corolla 2in. long, tubular, sub-ventricose, crinite-hairy, constricted above the base; limb obliquely four-lobed, the upper lobe bifid, with a club-shaped appendage; peduncles one-flowered. l., the large one shortly petiolate, ovate, acuminate, entire, hairy beneath, slightly succulent. Stem climbing, radicant, adpressedly pilose or glabrous. 1864. (B. M. 5428; G. C. 1864, p. 172.)