Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small trees to 3–6 m tall.

Stems: Bark gray to dark brown, thin, smooth to slightly furrowed, new growth finely puberulent, becoming glabrate, young branches subtended by a pair of bud scales.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound. Alternate. Leaflets 3, leaflets broadly deltate, lateral pair usually asymmetrical, 7–16 cm long, 4.5–9 cm wide, lateral petiolules twice articulated, at base and near leaflet, (22–)28–65 mm long, terminal petiolule 2–3 times articulated, at base, ca. ⅔ the length, and ± just below leaflet, (22–)35–72 mm long. Apex acuminate-caudate, usually falcate. Base ± asymmetrically truncate or subcordate. Surfaces glabrous, obscurely glandular punctate, especially near margins; Blades coriaceous. Margins minutely crenulate to subentire. Lateral veins usually 5–10 pairs, strongly ascending, higher order venation forming a reticulate pattern. Rachis terete (cylindrical) or winged. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers usually 15–40 (or sometimes more?) in axillary, open, cymose inflorescences usually 8– 12 cm long, finely puberulent throughout, peduncles 35–85 mm long, pedicels 3–5 mm long, bracteoles less than 1 mm long, subtended by a pair of bud scales. Flowers unisexual, actinomorphic. Calyx of 4(5) sepals; sepals, deltate, ca. 1 mm long, ciliolate. Corolla of 4(5) petals; petals pale greenish yellow, oblong–lanceolate,4–7 mm long, glabrous. Stamens 4(5?), alternate with the petals, glabrous, absent in pistillate flowers; anthers medifixed, dithecal. Ovary superior, 1-carpellate; ovule placentation axile, rudimentary in staminate flowers; style oblique; stigma capitate.

Fruit: Follicles 1; falcate; obovoid; 9–13 mm long; apex rounded; exocarp rugulose and pitted. Seeds 1 per fruit; on a slender funicle; black; subglobose–obovoid; compressed; 8–12 mm in diameter.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Mesic to somewhat wet forest.

Elevation Range: 580–800 m.