Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees up to 6 m tall.

Stems: Stems 1.5–2.75 mm in diameter near apex, internodes 1–4(–14) mm long, apices and leaf primordia pale yellowish brown tomentose.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades elliptic to lanceolate, 5–15.5(–21) cm long, 2–6(–9) cm wide. Apex acute to obtuse. Base obtuse or rounded. Surfaces glabrous; blades somewhat coriaceous to stiffly coriaceous. Margins entire, usually with a well–developed marginal rib. Lateral veins 10–15 pairs. Petioles 1.5–6.5(–18) cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in single axillary panicles, these 1–2 branched, reddish brown pubescent or glabrous. Panicles 10–63 cm long, simple or compound, with 12–20 primary branches 4–20 cm long. Each panicle branch subtended by 1 bract and 2 bracteoles, glabrous or puberulent at base. Peduncles 3–15 cm long. Gynodioecious (with bisexual (perfect)–flowered plants and female plants in each population). flowers 8–20 per branch, internodes between individual flowers 4–12 mm long, but some flowers as close as 0.3 mm apart. Calyx of 5 sepals, distinct, imbricate, subequal; 1.75–2.5 mm long, discernibly 3–7-veined. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens and staminodes 5; filaments connate at base to form a short, membranous tube with short, rounded flaps of tissue alternating with the filaments; anthers exserted at anthesis. Ovary superior, globose or urceolate, 1.5–2 mm long; style absent or very short; stigmas 2, straight or recurved, nearly as long as the ovary, with glands on the inner surface.

Fruit: Indehiscent utricle. Seeds black and shiny; lenticular ca. 1.5 mm long.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Relatively common in diverse mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 250–1,250 m.