Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs to shrubby trees 2–7 m tall.

Stems: New growth yellowish brown puberulent and with a waxy scurf, soon glabrate, stems usually many-branched.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades elliptic–obovate, elliptic, or broadly oblong–elliptic, (4.5–)6–17 cm long, often less than 12 cm long, 2.5–8 cm wide. Apex rounded, ± emarginate. Base cuneate to subtruncate. Surfaces glabrate except midrib on lower surfaces usually with a few scattered hairs; with a strong, pungent anise odor when crushed, thin, coriaceous. Margins entire. Flat to sometimes strongly revolute. Primary lateral veins 7–15 pairs, ascending, connected by a weakly arched vein 1–5(–9) mm from margin, higher order venation forming a prominent reticulate pattern, venation pinnate, lateral veins connected by an arched submarginal vein, higher order venation forming a reticulate pattern. Petioles 6–45 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers usually 3–5(7) in short, glabrate to sparsely puberulent, axillary cymes usually less than 2 cm long, peduncles 3–4 mm long, pedicels ca. 3 mm long, bracteoles minute, deltate, puberulent or glabrate, bracts small, opposite. Flowers functionally unisexual or bisexual (perfect) (usually with both staminate and bisexual (perfect) flowers on a single plant). Calyx of 4 sepals; sepals deltate–ovate, 1.8–2.2 mm wide, minutely ciliate, otherwise glabrous, imbricate. Corolla of 4 petals; petals valvate, deltate, 4.5–6 mm long, glabrous. Stamens 8, in 2 whorls, distinct, reduced but always present in functionally pistillate flowers. Ovary superior, ca. 1 mm long, glabrous; style slender, ca. 2 mm long, glabrous, ovary 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.

Fruit: Capsules depressed–cuboid to depressed–cuboid–globose; ca. 9 mm long; 10–14 mm wide; unlobed or weakly lobed; exocarp and endocarp glabrous. the carpels dehiscing along the upper suture; exocarp. Seeds 1(2) per carpel; 5–6 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 mesic to sometimes wet forest.

Elevation Range: 430–880(–1,070) m.