Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small trees, evergreen, single or multiple stems; 1–8 m tall. Apparently hemiparasitic on roots of other plants.

Stems: Older trees readily spread vegetatively via root sprouts when surface roots are exposed or damaged, sometimes forming small stands.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades ovate, obovate, elliptic or orbicular, 2.2–8.4 cm x 1.2–4.9 cm. Apex acute or obtuse (rarely acuminate). Base cuneate. More glaucous and paler on lower surfaces, evergreen, simple, olive green, often purplish–tinged, usually glaucous, stiff and coriaceous. Margins flat to slightly recurved. Petioles 1.2–21.7 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in congested, terminal, compound cymes, rarely with a few additional axillary flower clusters. Flowers bisexual (perfect), weakly fragrant, reddish to cream-colored in bud, longer than wide. Pedicels 2–4 mm long, bracts persistent until flowering. Calyx (sepals) absent. Corolla of 4 (rarely 5) petals; petals deep pink to red throughout, or with white to pink interiors; floral–tubes campanulate to cylindrical, without vertical keel below each corolla lobe; disk lobes lingulate, apices acute or round, concave with thickened margins, papillate. Stamens 4, hairs proximal to the filaments (rarely hairs distal). Ovary partly inferior (approx. ⅔); drupe elliptic, with subapical ring; stigma lobes 3.

Fruit: Drupes black or purplish black at maturity; 9–16 mm long; with a subapical receptacular ring. Seeds muricate; with pointed beak on one end.

Ploidy:

Habitat: In subalpine and montane mesic forest plant communities and exposed or semishaded scrublands.

Elevation Range: 800–2,700 m.