Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs or small trees up to 4.5 m tall.

Stems: Young branches rusty tomentose or sometimes with scattered hairs, rarely glabrous.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades broadly elliptic or narrowly ovate, (5–)7–12(–20) cm long, (1.8–)3–5(–9). Apex acute or acuminate, sometimes obtuse. Base broadly rounded, cuneate or bluntly tapering. Surfaces glabrous or with scattered hairs along the midrib on lower surface, petioles pilose or glabrous; dark green; lower surfaces lighter, chartaceous, (5–)7–12(–20) cm long, (1.8–)3–5(–9) cm wide. Margins entire. Pinnately veined. Petioles 4–10 mm long, pilose or glabrous. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in peduncles 3–7 mm long, slightly pilose or glabrous, rachis stout, elongating up to 50 mm or more long in fruit, densely hirsute, usually repeatedly forked, pedicels 1–3 mm long, tomentose. Flowers bisexual (perfect), greenish or yellowish green, usually pubescent, becoming glabrate. Calyx tube 7.5–12 mm long, outer lobes 2–4mm long, 1.2–3.5 mm wide, inner lobes 2–3.7 mm long, 1.2–3.5 mm wide. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 8, the lower whorl included, the upper whorl sometimes shortly exserted. Ovary superior, 1-celled; ovules solitary and pendulous.

Fruit: Fruit bright red or orangish red; ellipsoid; 10–15 mm long; 5.5–8 mm in diameter. fruit drupaceous. Seeds without endosperm.

Ploidy: 2n = 18*

Habitat: Scattered in <i>hala</i> forest and rather common in diverse mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 380–1,220 m.