Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Erect palmoid shrubs 1–2(–7) m tall.

Stems: Main stem up to 2 cm in diameter, few–branched, branches ascending, leafy toward apex, glabrous throughout except new growth and young inflorescences, wood somewhat brittle, with a pepsin-like odor when freshly broken.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades narrowly obovate to oblong–spatulate, 12–40 cm long, 5–13 cm wide. Apex bluntly obtuse to acute. Base long-attenuate or sometimes attenuate, but abruptly truncate or obtuse at juncture to petiole. Surfaces glandular punctate. Margins entire. Lateral veins ascending, connected by a deeply arched vein, midrib sulcate on upper surface. Petioles 2–10 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers (3–)9–15 in axillary, cymose-fasciculate inflorescences, on lower stems below current leaves, peduncles nearly obsolete, pedicels 5–10 mm long, glabrous; bracts hirtellous when young. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic. Calyx of 4 sepals, in imbricated pairs, suborbicular, 3–4 mm long, 5–6 mm wide, glabrous, margins ciliolate. Corolla of 4 petals, white or cream, broadly lanceolate, slightly imbricate, 9–16 mm long, ciliolate, otherwise glabrous. Stamens 8; filaments white, nearly completely connate into a staminal tube; anthers dithecal, subsessile on lobes of staminal tube, elongate, base subhastate, alternately larger and smaller. Ovary superior, 4-carpellate, 4-lobed, the carpels connate ½–¾ their length, placentation axile; styles at first connate, but later strongly divergent as the fruit matures; stigmas linear; ovules 5–8 per carpel, pendulous on short, broad funiculi; style columnar; stigmas linear, erect, connate, slightly thickened apically.

Fruit: Fruit cruciate; chartaceous; 16–33 mm in diameter; glabrous; carpels 10–16 mm long; upper part widely spreading in fruit; apex short–beaked; the beak 0.5–2 mm long. Seeds 8 per carpel; embryo with thin; broad; rounded cotyledons; hypocotyl very short; embedded in white endosperm.

Ploidy: 2n = 36*

Habitat: Mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 340–920 m.