Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Sprawling shrubs.

Stems: New growth densely tomentose, branches becoming glabrate, stems up to a few m long.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades elliptic to obovate, 3–18 cm long, 1.3–9 cm wide. Apex rounded, usually emarginate. Base cuneate. Upper surfaces glabrous; lower surfaces moderately pilose; blades coriaceous. Margins entire. Primary lateral veins usually 12–20 pairs, spreading, connected by an arched vein 2–6 mm from margin, venation pinnate, lateral veins connected by an arched submarginal vein, higher order venation forming a reticulate pattern. Petioles 10–30 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 1–5 in minutely puberulent, axillary cymes, peduncles 1–5 mm long, pedicels 3–4 mm long. Calyx unknown. Corolla unknown. Stamens 8. 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.

Fruit: Capsules green; 20–25 mm wide; carpels connate ca. ½ their length; 10–12 mm long; exocarp minutely puberulent; endocarp glabrous. the carpels dehiscing along the upper suture. Seeds 2 per carpel; ca.4 mm long (immature). 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: Mesic forest.

Elevation Range: ca. 1067 m.