Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees (3–)4–11 m tall.

Stems: Branches reddish brown, striate, the youngest ones yellowish brown tomentose.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound (even-pinnate). Alternate. Blades elliptic to elliptic–ovate or elliptic–oblanceolate, usually slightly asymmetrical, 20–55 cm long, leaflets (1)2–5 pairs, 10–28 cm long, 4–12 cm wide, petiolules 1–1.5 cm long; leaflets opposite or alternate. Apex acuminate to obtuse. Base broadly cuneate to rounded. Upper surfaces glossy, glabrous; lower surfaces densely brown tomentose when young (on Kauaʻi sparsely puberulent), usually becoming more sparsely so or glabrate at maturity, rarely the hairs persistent at maturity; blades coriaceous to chartaceous. Leaflet margins entire, serrate, or dentate. Tertiary and higher order venation forming a conspicuous reticulate pattern. Petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in panicles up to 30 cm long, pedicels 0.5–3 mm long, bracts 1–3 mm long, caducous. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or staminate. Calyx cup-shaped, lobes 4–6, 1.5–2.5 mm long, the lobes unequal, narrowly deltate. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 6–8 in perfect flowers, 9–13 in staminate flowers, exserted; filaments puberulent; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, 1–4-lobed, 2-celled, pistillode rudimentary in staminate flowers, densely pubescent, placentation basal; ovules 1 per cell; style short, terminal; stigmas 2–4, inconspicuous.

Fruit: Fruit of 1(2) mericarps; each subglobose; 2.5–7 cm in diameter; the second mericarp usually abortive and much smaller or inconspicuous; lenticels present; glabrate with age; pericarp ca. 3 mm thick; irregularly scarlet on inner surface. Seeds glossy pale brown; seed coat hard; ca. 1 mm thick; at base with irregular projections 5–10 mm long overlapping aril; aril scarlet; firm–fleshy; smooth; with an irregular sinus on 1 side; endosperm absent.

Ploidy: 2n = 32*

Habitat: Dry to mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 360–1,070 m.