Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs or small trees up to 6 m tall.

Stems: Young branches rounded to subquadrate, sparsely to densely covered with appressed silvery scales.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, decussate. Blades ovate–lanceolate, 7–10(–15) cm long, 2.3–3.5(–4.5) cm wide. Apex acuminate. Base obtuse to rounded. Upper surfaces essentially glabrous; lower surfaces densely covered with appressed silvery scales and with a cluster of coarse spreading hairs at junction of primary nerves. Margins entire. 3-veined. Petioles 14–26 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in simple cymes arranged in terminal panicles, inflorescences 9–14 cm long (incl. peduncle), pedicels 1–3 mm long in fruit, bracts and bracteoles greatly reduced and scale-like, early deciduous. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Hypanthium covered with appressed silvery scales. Calyx limb forming a shallow, spreading, subtruncate flange 0.5–1 mm long, persistent. Corolla of 5 petals, white and farinose, narrowly obovate, 6.5–8 mm long, 3.5–5 mm wide at apex. Stamens twice as many as petals, all similar; filaments 4.5–5.5 mm long; anthers yellow, 5–6 mm long, linear–subulate, with a dorsally inclined pore, connective not prolonged below anther sacs and without appendages. Ovary inferior, 3-celled; ovules numerous, placentation axile; style simple; stigma terminal.

Fruit: Berries bluish black; fleshy; subglobose; 6–8 mm long including the constricted neck just below the flaring calyx limb. Seeds cuneate; conspicuously angled; 1.5–2 mm long; endosperm absent.

Ploidy: 2n = 34

Habitat: Mesic to wet forest and disturbed areas such as along trails and roadsides.

Elevation Range: