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 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.