Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Suberect or ascending, branched shrubs 3–10 dm tall, glabrous throughout except for the leaf margins.

Stems: Stems often swollen at the nodes, terete (cylindrical), 4–angled or –ridged, lateral branches of primary stems usually elongating several or more nodes below the inflorescence.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades elliptic to broadly elliptic, sometimes obovate or oblanceolate, 4–11 cm long, (1.5–)2.5–5(–6.8) cm wide. Apex mucronate. Base leaf bases often connate around the stem. Blades thick and somewhat fleshy, light green becoming yellowish white toward the base and at the apex (youngest yellowish white, sometimes purple tinged). Margins entire, serrulate, the teeth with antrorsely hooked hairs ca. 0.1–0.2 mm long. 3 principal veins, sometimes also with an inconspicuous looping pair of veins near the margins. Petioles 1–3(–3.8) cm long, yellowish white, weakly to conspicuously connate around the stem. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescence pseudoaxillary, with 22–33 flowers, somewhat congested; bracts much smaller than uppermost leaves, usually curled and twisted, lowest pair to 1.4 cm long; peduncles (2–)5–25 mm long, not elongating much in fruit, the internodes of the lateral inflorescence branches 2–10 mm long; pedicels thinner, 15–30 mm long, elongating mostly just prior to anthesis. Flowers bisexual (perfect), apparently adapted for bird pollination, pendent. Calyx of (4–)5(–6) sepals; sepals often variable on the same plant, 7–8.4 mm long, 5.5–6 mm wide, enlarging to 9–12 mm long and 8–9 mm wide in fruit, white adaxially, the outer ones oblong–elliptic, pale green abaxially, inner ones elliptic to obovate, greenish white with a green midrib, the apex broadly obtuse and usually retuse, the outer ones sometimes with a subapical minute mucro, becoming dark purple and fleshy as fruit matures. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens (8–)10(–12); filaments 4.4–5 mm long, subequal; anthers 1.9–2.65 mm long, pale reddish purple at anthesis, changing to a darker reddish purple. Pollen gray. Ovary superior, 1-celled; ovule placentation free-central; styles (4–)6–7(–8), often variable in number on the same plant, filiform; stigma receptive completely around the distal half or rarely nearly throughout its length, slightly enlarged and papillose.

Fruit: Capsules 9–12 mm long; ovoid to subglobose; enclosed by or exserted from the persistent dried calyx (in section Alsinidendron calyx fleshy and dark purple); dehiscing at maturity by 4–11 valves. Seeds relatively few to numerous; 1.2–1.5 mm long; the viable ones black or dark or light brown; the inviable ones usually reddish brown; orbicular–reniform; reniform; or rarely orbicular; usually laterally compressed; the surface rugose; papillose; or sometimes nearly smooth; perisperm starchy; hard or rarely soft; true endosperm absent.

Ploidy: 2n = 48–50

Habitat: Rare and scattered on ridges and slopes in diverse mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 550–800 m.