Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small trees 5–7 m tall.

Stems: Bark fissured, flaky, vegetative buds narrow, pointed, with long–persistent, obovate to spatulate, attenuate scales up to 22 mm long and 7 mm wide.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple, dorsiventral (distinctly different upper and lower surfaces). Opposite. Blades broadly ovate, 4.5–7 cm long, 3–5 cm wide. Apex rounded to acute or moderately attenuate. Base rounded to truncate. Surfaces glabrous. Margins entire. Petioles 15–35 mm long, 1.5–2.5 mm wide, often at right angles or more to the stems. Stipules vestigial or absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences of 4–6 pairs of cymules, usually glabrous or sometimes appressed silvery pubescent, peduncles ca. 12 mm long and 2 mm wide, pedicels ca. 3 mm long and 1 mm wide, bracts ovate to lanceolate, ca. 5.5 mm long and 3.5 mm wide, long–persistent. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic. Hypanthium well–developed above ovary, fruiting hypanthium 4–6 mm long, 7–9 mm wide, with prominent veins, glabrous to puberulent. Sepals distinct, triangular, 2–3 mm long, 2–3.5 mm wide, imbricate. Petals distinct, obovate to orbicular, ca. 5 mm long and 3 mm wide, hypanthium ca. 3–4 mm high, 4–5 mm wide, imbricate. Stamens 1.8–2.5 cm long, distinct; filaments distinct; anthers dithecal. Ovary nearly superior. Placentas axile, peltate; ovules numerous, anatropous; style 2–2.7 cm long, terminal, simple.

Fruit: Capsules enclosed by hypanthium; exserted; 2–3 mm.

Ploidy:

Habitat: In the Koolau Mountains

Elevation Range: 250–730 m