Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small dioecious trees 3–14 m tall.

Stems: Branches thick, succulent, terminating bluntly at apex, leaf scars prominent on young branches.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades elliptic, blades (7–)10–15(–20) cm long, (3.2–)4–6(–8.2) cm wide. Apex obtuse to retuse. Base obtuse. Surfaces glabrous or occasionally hirsutulous, blades chartaceous. Margins entire. Petioles (1.5–)2–4(–5.3) cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in cyathia axillary; pistillate flowers solitary, on a gynophore; staminate flowers in 5 groups or cymules, each with 1 to several flowers; cyathia subtended by deciduous bracts ca. 1 mm long, forming a terminal pseudoumbel from reduction of internodes, peduncles 11–30 mm long, hirsute, sometimes with v–shaped glands 1–6 mm below the cyathium, these ca. 1 mm long. involucre truncate, 4–5 mm high, 7–9 mm wide, hirsute, glands (8)9(–11), dark brown, sometimes mottled, 1.5–2.5 mm long, ca. 1 mm wide, densely hirsute below. Flowers unisexual and highly reduced. Calyx (sepals) absent. Corolla (petals) absent. Male flower reduced to a single stamen, with an articulation at junction of pedicel and filament, subtended by slender bracteoles; filaments 1 mm long, subtended by densely ciliate bracts ca. 3 mm long. Ovary superior; Pistillate flower subtended by several diminutive and abortive staminate flowers, each with a small bract; style ca. 4 mm long; stigmas ca. 1 mm long, bifid.

Fruit: Capsules brown when dry; globose; 11–14 mm in diameter; hirsute; gynophores (1–) 3.5–8 mm long. Seeds dark brown; mottled; ovoid; obscurely angled; 7–9 mm long; ca. 5 mm wide; caruncle white or cream–colored; ca. 1 mm long.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Slopes in diverse mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 350–650 m.