Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs or small trees 2–5 m tall.

Stems: Young stems glabrous.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Whorled (3 per node). Blades oblong–lanceolate, lanceolate, or elliptic–lanceolate, (55–)65–115 cm long, (11–)13–24 cm wide. Apex short–acuminate to acute. Base attenuate to narrowly cuneate. Surfaces glabrous, blades somewhat thick, chartaceous. Margins entire. Pinnately veined. Petioles 6–20 mm long. Stipules membranous, 9–12 mm long, connate ca. ¼ their length, splitting as young shoot grows, quickly deciduous, glabrous, margins glabrous, occasionally (mt. ka'ala, wai'anae mts.) dentate with a few small appendages, apex short–attenuate, acute.

Flowers: Flowers in clusters of (3–)6–12; (6)7–8-merous, peduncles 4–12 mm long, glabrous. Flowers unisexual, dioecious, often heterostylous; insect-pollinated. Calyx of staminate flowers cup-shaped, 7–8 mm long, the teeth acuminate; pistillate flowers with Calyx cup-shaped, occasionally slightly bilabiate, ca. 1 mm long. Corolla of staminate flowers campanulate, 7–10.2 mm long, the lobes 3–4.6 mm long; corolla of pistillate flowers narrowly funnelform, 3–5 mm long, the lobes 1–1.5 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 drupaceous; juicy; reddish orange; ellipsoid; 6–8 mm long; apex with conspicuous persistent calyx; with 2(-4); 1-seeded; planoconvex pyrenes. Seeds with well-developed oily endosperm; or endosperm occasionally scanty or absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring in mesic to occasionally wet forest.

Elevation Range: 360–1,200 m.