Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs.

Stems: Stems scandent, 1–4 m long, glabrous, flowering branches 2–3.5 mm in diameter.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, decussate. Blades elliptic to oblanceolate, 40–130 mm long, 10–45 mm wide. Apex broadly acute to rounded, occasionally retuse or mucronulate. Base cuneate and oblique. Surfaces glabrous or slightly pubescent at basal margin. Margins entire. Petioles 3–11(–16) mm long, glabrous or pilose above. Stipules persistent, acute–triangular, 1–3 mm long, ciliate.

Flowers: Flowers in cyathia in dense, glomerate, branched, cymose clusters or occasionally solitary, peduncles 3–6 mm long when cyathia solitary, or 1–3 mm long when in cymes. involucre narrowly campanulate, 1.5–2 mm high, 1.5–2 mm wide, glabrous, glands 4–5, yellow to green, glabrous. Flowers unisexual and highly reduced. Pistillate flowers solitary, on a gynophore; staminate flowers in 5 groups or cymules, each with 1 to several flowers. 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. Ovary superior; styles yellow or red, bifid up to ½ their length, 0.3–1 mm long, glabrous.

Fruit: Capsules green; 2–3 mm long; glabrous; gynophores recurved; exserted 2–3 mm from involucre; glabrous. Seeds gray to brown; 1.5–2 mm long; shallowly rugose.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Diverse mesic forest and perhaps sometimes wet forest.

Elevation Range: 400–1,100 m.