Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Slender trees 3–6 m tall, new growth sparsely to densely dull gray to yellowish brown puberulent; branches brown.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite or occasionally ternate on young lateral branches. Blades narrowly to broadly elliptic, sometimes elliptic–obovate or elliptic–ovate, rarely lanceolate, 6–16 cm long, 3–8.5 cm wide. Apex rounded, ± emarginate. Base rounded. Surfaces glabrate to sparsely puberulent along midrib on lower surface. Margins entire, flat or strongly revolute. Primary lateral veins usually 9–12 pairs, paler than surface, connected by an arched vein 1–5 mm from margin, venation pinnate, lateral veins connected by an arched submarginal vein, higher order venation forming a reticulate pattern. Petioles 11–30 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 3–11 in glabrate, axillary cymes, peduncles 9–22 mm long, pedicels 2–5 mm long, bracteoles lanceolate, caducous, bracts small, opposite. Calyx of 4 sepals; Sepals of staminate flowers broadly ovate, 2–2.5 mm long, glabrate to sparsely puberulent, margins scarious. Sepals of pistillate flowers similar in pubescence to staminate ones, but slightly smaller, ca. 2 mm long, imbricate. Corolla of 4 petals' petals of staminate flowers deltate, 6–8 mm long, densely puberulent externally, glabrous within' petals of pistillate flowers deltate, ca. 4–5 mm long. Stamens 8, in 2 whorls, distinct, reduced but always present in functionally pistillate flowers, pistillate flowers Stamens rudimentary, style ca. 1 mm long, petals 4, valvate. Ovary superior, 4-celled and 4-lobed, carpels connate, only slightly distinct at apex to almost entirely distinct; ovules 2 per cell, hemitropous, 1 ascending; style 1, terminating in 4 short stigmatic branches; staminate flowers style reduced, ca. 1 mm long.

Fruit: Fruit probably green to brown; 18–24 mm wide; of distinct follicles 7–12 mm long; exocarp glabrate; endocarp puberulent. the carpels dehiscing along the upper suture; exocarp. Seeds 1–2 per carpel; ca. 4–5 mm long. glossy black when ripe; crustaceous; ovoid; sometimes angled from compression; embryo straight in fleshy endosperm; radicle short; cotyledons compressed; ovate; putamen brown; warty.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring in diverse mesic forest and wet forest.

Elevation Range: 510–1,220 m.