Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Many-branched shrubs or small trees 0.5–3 m tall.

Stems: New growth sparsely puberulent or sometimes densely yellowish brown appressed hirtellous, usually soon glabrate, stems erect to nearly prostrate in open bogs.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Whorled (4 per node). Blades narrowly elliptic to lanceolate–elliptic or sometimes elliptic, 5–9(–12) cm long, 0.8–2.5(–4.8) cm wide. Apex acute to acuminate, sometimes (wahiawa bog) rounded and ± weakly emarginate. Base attenuate to cuneate. Surfaces glabrous or sometimes midrib and vicinity on lower surfaces somewhat persistently short–hirtellous. Margins entire. Veins prominent, primary lateral veins usually 16–28 pairs, connected by a vein 0.5–1 mm from margin, venation pinnate, lateral veins connected by an arched submarginal vein, higher order venation forming a reticulate pattern. Petioles 0–5(–17) mm long, usually with leaf base slightly decurrent. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 1 to few, fasciculate, below the leaves, sparsely puberulent, peduncles 0–1 mm long, pedicels 2–5 mm long, bracts small, opposite. Calyx of 4 sepals; sepals imbricate, staminate flowers with sepals broadly ovate, ca. 2 mm long, pistillate flowers with sepals broadly ovate, ca. 2 mm long. Corolla of 4 petals, valvate, staminate flowers petals thin, oblong–deltate, 6–7 mm long, very sparsely puberulent to glabrous, pistillate flowers petals oblong–deltate, 5.5–6 mm long. Stamens 8, in 2 whorls, distinct, reduced but always present in functionally pistillate flowers, pistillate flowers Stamens rudimentary. Ovary superior, 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, staminate flowers ovary rudimentary, glabrous, pistillate flowers ovary glabrous; style filiform, ca. 2 mm long.

Fruit: Capsules 7–10 (–17) mm wide; carpels connate 1/8–¼ their length; 3–5(–8) mm long; exocarp thin; glabrous; strongly veined when dry; endocarp glabrous. the carpels dehiscing along the upper suture; exocarp. Seeds 1(2) per carpel; 3–4 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: Occurring in open bogs and small bog hummocks.

Elevation Range: (640)1,220–1,590 m.