Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees or shrubs 3–7 m tall, new growth densely dull grayish to yellowish brown puberulent, branchlets becoming glabrate.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades elliptic or narrowly ovate, 3.5–15 cm long, 2–5(–7) cm wide. Apex broadly acute to obtuse, ± minutely emarginate. Base rounded or weakly subcordate. Upper surfaces glabrous; lower surfaces puberulent, petioles puberulent; blade coriaceous. Margins entire. Primary lateral veins usually 10–18 pairs, raised on lower surface, connected by an arched vein 2–10 mm from margin, venation pinnate, higher order venation forming a reticulate pattern. Petioles 15–33 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 5–9 in glabrous and viscid to densely grayish puberulent, axillary cymes, peduncles 3–7 mm long, pedicels 1.5–2 mm long, bracteoles lanceolate, lower ones up to 5 mm long, ciliate, sparsely to densely grayish puberulent, flowers bracts small, opposite. Calyx of 4 sepals, sepals ovate, 2.5–3 mm long, densely grayish puberulent, imbricate. Corolla of 4 petals; petals valvate, deltate, 3.5–5 mm long, densely puberulent externally. Stamens 8, in 2 whorls, distinct, reduced but always present in functionally pistillate flowers. Ovary superior, 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: Fruit dark green; 20–30 mm wide; of distinct follicles 11–15 mm long; exocarp glabrous; endocarp short–villous with pale hairs; the carpels dehiscing along the upper suture. Seeds 1–2 per cell; 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.

Elevation Range: 240–820 m.