Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs to 10 m tall, climbing.

Stems: Branchlets glabrous or glabrescent.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades oblong to broadly lanceolate, 6–16(–25) × 2.5–6(–8) cm. Apex acuminate to acute. Base cuneate to acute. Upper surfaces glabrous; lower surfaces glabrous or only midvein puberulent; blade papery. Margins entire. Veins pinnate. Secondary veins 8–16 on each side of midvein and adaxially prominent. Petioles 4–8 mm. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences 1– or 2–flowered. peduncle recurved, woody, persistent, forming a hook. torus flat or concave. Flowers bisexual (perfect), 2.5–3 cm in diam., bisexual (perfect), fragrant. Calyx of 3 sepals, green, ovate, 5–8 mm, sparsely puberulent valvate, connate at base. Corolla of 6 petals, in 2 whorls, greenish to yellowish, oblong–lanceolate, 3–4.5 × 0.9–1.6 cm, outside basally densely pubescent, contracted nearly to base but basally expanded, base concave, apex connivent. Stamens numerous, oblong, apex truncate; connectives apically 3-angular. Ovary superior; carpels oblong, glabrous; ovules 2 per carpel, basal.

Fruit: Monocarps ovoid; 2.5–4 × ca. 2.5 cm; glabrous; apex conspicuously apiculate; fleshy and berrylike. Seeds pale brown; 1.5–2 cm; smooth; without an aril.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: 100–300 m.