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Notes
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This species is characterized by its rather slender habit; its somewhat small, generally elliptic, thin-textured leaves with the venation characteristically closely reticulated and evident on the abaxial surface; its solitary, subsessile flowers; its short calyx limb ca. 1 mm long that is enclosed within an enlarged stipular sheath or bract; its slender white corollas with the tube 1.8-3.5 cm long; and its rather small fruits. Its leaf shape and size vary, but often the leaf base is rounded to truncate. This species is similar to several other slender Ixora species with solitary subsessile flowers, in particular Ixora sambiranensis, with narrow leaves and a rheophytic habit, and Ixora bemangidiensis with a suffrutescent habit, generally smaller, leaves, and a range in southern Madagascar; see De Block (2007) for more details and a key to separate these. Ixora clandestina is also similar vegetatively to Ixora mangabensis and these are sometimes confused, but Ixora mangabensis has pedunculate, several-flowered inflorescences.
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