Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees 3–13 m tall.

Stems: Branches somewhat quadrangular, puberulent and viscid.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, few, clustered toward the tips of the branches. Blades elliptic to broadly elliptic, elliptic–obovate, or broadly obovate, (6–)9–24(–26) cm long, (4.5–)5–10 cm wide. Apex short–acuminate. Base attenuate to narrowly truncate or subcordate. Upper surfaces glabrous and viscid, especially when young; lower surfaces dull, puberulent, at least along veins; blades, firm–chartaceous; domatia usually present in the axils of the lateral veins. Margins entire. Lateral veins 9–15 pairs, these prominent. Petioles 0.3– 0.8 cm long. Stipules conspicuous, connate into a collar 4–8 mm long, puberulent and viscid.

Flowers: Flowers solitary, terminal, soon appearing axillary by development of one of the vegetatifve buds lateral to the flower, pedicels 3– 13 mm long, puberulent and viscid; hypanthium narrowly funnelform, 6–12 mm long, sharply 4–6–angled or 4–6–winged, formed by lower part of calyx and enclosed ovary, apically lined with a shallow nectary disk. Flowers insect-pollinated, bisexual (perfect) or rarely unisexual, often heterostylous, fragrant. Calyx narrowly funnelform, 4–5 mm long, puberulent and viscid, apically produced into 4–6 terminal spurs, these coriaceous, asymmetrically obovate, 24–38 mm long, 8–19 mm wide, puberulent. Corolla conspicuous, white, firm, subcoriaceous, salverform, 6–8-lobed, the tube 20–24 mm long (when dry), the lobes 16–18 mm long (when dry); nectary disk usually present. Stamens included, as many as and alternate with the corolla lobes; filaments short, usually inserted on the corolla tube or throat; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits, dorsifixed above middle, linear-oblong, 13–15 mm long. Ovary inferior, occasionally partly so, or very rarely superior, 1-celled or falsely 2-celled; ovules numerous, placentation parietal; style 1, terminal, slender; stigmas connate or 2-lobed, dry or occasionally wet.

Fruit: Fruit orange; subglobose to broadly ellipsoid; 1–2.8 cm in diameter; prominently costate; terminated by somewhat persistent calyx spurs; pericarp hard; exocarp thin; mesocarp fibrous-coriaceous; endocarp bony; pulp apparently yellow. Seeds numerous; irregularly obovate; 1.8-2.1 mm long; reticulate; horizontally embedded in pulp; compressed; with well-developed oily endosperm; or endosperm occasionally scanty or absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occasional in mesic to sometimes wet forest.

Elevation Range: 60–760 m.