Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Many-branched, sprawling or scandent shrubs.

Stems: Stems 2–4 m long, with nearly horizontal, usually short, divaricate, lateral branches, youngest ones sparsely to densely coarsely puberulent (hairs spreading or somewhat appressed) or sometimes glabrous.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, usually widely spaced. Blades elliptic to ovate or occasionally narrowly obovate, 35–70(–85) mm long, 13–30 mm wide. Apex acuminate to broadly obtuse, inconspicuously mucronulate. Base cuneate. Upper surfaces appressed coarsely puberulent along lower part of midrib or throughout, otherwise glabrous; lower surfaces glabrous; blades chartaceous. Margins ciliate, especially toward base. Pinnately veined. Petioles 3–20 mm long, appressed coarsely puberulent on upper part. Stipules present 2–4 mm long, connate at base, margins moderately short–ciliate, apex acuminate, base more or less puberulent.

Flowers: Flowers 1–3, peduncles and pedicels glabrous to coarsely puberulent; staminate flowers with peduncles 5–15 mm long, pistillate flowers with peduncles (8–)15–30 mm long, pedicels 0–6 mm long. Flowers insect-pollinated, unisexual (and the plants dioecious), often heterostylous. Calyx of staminate flowers apparently absent(?) (based on 1 observation), or tubular, slightly bilabiate, irregularly 7–8-toothed, 3–5 mm long (based on 2 observations. Calyx of pistillate flowers probably 5–6-lobed, length unknown. Corolla of staminate flowers campanulate, 7–8 lobed, ca. 6 mm long; corolla of pistillate flowers narrowly funnelform, 5–6-lobed, ca. 3 mm long; nectary disk usually present. Stamens 4-5(-10), alternate with the corolla lobes, inserted at base of corolla tube; filaments long-exserted; anthers penduous, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary inferior, occasionally partly so, or very rarely superior, 2(-4)-celled; ovule 1 per cell, basal, anatropous; style as many as carpels, 2(-4)lobed, divided nearly to base, terminal, slender; stigmas lobed or capitate, long-exserted, papillose-hirsute, dry or occasionally wet.

Fruit: Fruit drupaceious; juicy; bright orange; ovoid; 6–8 mm long; with 2(-4); 1-seeded; planoconvex pyrenes; apex with persistent calyx teeth but spread apart and exposing underlying pale; callus-like tissue. Seeds with well-developed oily endosperm; or endosperm occasionally scanty or absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 500–1,000 m.