Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Sprawling shrubs 1–3 m tall, new growth yellowish brown short–hirtellous, soon glabrate.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades elliptic–oblanceolate, 8–14 cm long, 4–7 cm wide. Apex rounded to acute. Base broadly rounded to subcordate. Upper surfaces glabrous; lower surfaces of youngest leaves minutely puberulent, primarily on midrib, becoming glabrate; thin, coriaceous. Margins entire. Primary lateral veins usually 14–18 pairs, slightly ascending, connected by a vein 1–3 mm from margin, venation pinnate, lateral veins connected by an arched submarginal vein, higher order venation forming a reticulate pattern. Petioles 8–25 mm long, but at least some of them more than 10 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 1–3 in axillary cymes 3–4 cm long, glabrate or sometimes base of peduncle and rarely lowest axes with a few scattered hairs, peduncles 3–15 mm long, pedicels 15–20 mm long, slightly flaring at base of calyx, bracteoles minute, deltate, sparsely puberulent, bracts small, opposite. Calyx of 4 sepals; sepals of pistillate flowers with sepals deltate, ca. 3–4 mm long, glabrous, sepals 4, imbricate. Corolla of pistillate flowers with 4 petals ca. 4.8 mm long, glabrous, valvate. Stamens 8, in 2 whorls, distinct, reduced but always present in functionally pistillate flowers. Ovary superior, glabrous, nectary disk 8-lobed, 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, ca. 4 mm long, terminating in 4 short stigmatic branches.

Fruit: Capsules 20–33 mm wide; carpels connate ca. ¼ their length; 10–17 mm long; somewhat reflexed; exocarp and endocarp glabrous. the carpels dehiscing along the upper suture; exocarp. Seeds 1–2 per carpel; 7–8 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: Known from wet forest.

Elevation Range: 760–1,190 m.