Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small to medium-sized trees (1–)3–8 m tall.

Stems: Trunk up to 25 cm in diameter, bark pale to dark gray, foliage usually lemon–scented, new growth glabrous or finely puberulent or tomentose, young branches subtended by a pair of bud scales.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound. Alternate. Blades broadly deltate–ovate or lanceolate, when deltate–ovate, the lateral ones asymmetrical; leaflets 3, thin to sometimes thick, coriaceous, 3.4–10(–12) cm long, 1.5–5(–7.5) cm wide, lateral petiolules articulated only at base, ± thickened near leaflet but not actually articulated, (3–)10–40 mm long, terminal petiolule twice articulated, at base and near leaflet, (12–)15–52 mm long. Apex acute to acuminate, sometimes slightly falcate. Base ± asymmetrically truncate or cuneate. Surfaces glabrous or lower surfaces finely puberulent, glandular punctate, the glands scattered and prominent. Margins minutely crenulate. Lateral veins 5–9 pairs, strongly ascending, higher order venation forming a reticulate pattern. Rachis terete (cylindrical) or winged. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers usually 15–20 in axillary, open, cymose inflorescences usually 4–8 cm long, peduncles 20–50 mm long, pedicels 2–4 mm long; bracteoles ca. 1 mm long, puberulent. Flowers unisexual, actinomorphic. Calyx of 4 sepals, alternate with the petals, narrowly deltate, ca. 1 mm long, sparsely puberulent and ciliolate. Corolla of 4 petals, color unknown, oblong–lanceolate to narrowly ovate, 3–6 mm long. Stamens 4, glabrous, absent in pistillate flowers(?); anthers medifixed, dithecal. Ovary superior, 1-carpellate; ovule placentation axile, rudimentary in staminate flowers; style oblique; stigma capitate.

Fruit: Follicles 1; falcate; obovoid; 8–10 mm long; apex rounded; exocarp rugulose and pitted. Seeds 1 per fruit; on a slender funicle; black; subglobose; compressed; 7–8 mm in diameter.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Dry forest on lava flows; sometimes in mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 550–1,740 m.