Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Deciduous shrubs 2–4 m tall, ± thorny; densely lepidote or stellate pubescent.

Stems: Branches slender, spreading, ± spiny, the young branches densely scaly.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades simple, elliptic to ovate–oblong, 4–8 cm long, 1–2(–2.5) cm wide. Apex acute to sometimes obtuse. Upper surfaces sparsely white lepidote; lower surfaces densely white lepidote. Margins entire. Petioles 0.5–1 cm long, densely white lepidote. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 1–7 in axillary umbels. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or sometimes unisexual (and then plants dioecious or polygamodioecious), actinomorphic; often fragrant, bisexual (perfect), densely white lepidote. Calyx of (2)4(6) sepals; sepals often petaloid, appearing as lobes on a tubular hypanthium in pistillate flowers or saucer-shaped in staminate flowers. Calyx white or yellow within, 4-lobed, deciduous; lobes narrowly ovate, ca. 3–5 mm long. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 4, inserted on mouth of hypanthium; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary partly inferior, carpel 1; ovule 1, basal, anatropous; style slender; stigma linear to capitate.

Fruit: Dry achenes; but appearing drupaceous or berry-like; red; enclosed by persistent base of hypanthium; which becomes fleshy; subglobose to broadly ellipsoid; 6–8 mm long. Seeds 1 per fruit; endosperm scanty or absent.

Ploidy: 2n = 28

Habitat: In mesic to wet; disturbed areas.

Elevation Range: