Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Sprawling shrubs, new growth densely yellowish to golden brown puberulent; branches long, slender, grayish pubescent, becoming glabrate, pubescence persistent in axils.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, widely spaced. Blades elliptic, elliptic–ovate, or elliptic–oblong, 1.5–6.5 cm long, 1–4 cm wide. Apex rounded and emarginate or minutely mucronulate. Base emarginate to subcordate. Upper surfaces glabrous; lower surfaces minutely puberulent when young, soon glabrate; blades, coriaceous to chartaceous. Margins entire. Primary lateral veins ca. 14 pairs, venation pinnate, lateral veins connected by an arched submarginal vein, higher order venation forming a reticulate pattern. Petioles 6–16 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 1–3 in slender, delicate, elongated, axillary cymes, peduncles 13–17 mm long, pedicels 4–8(–14) mm long, bracteoles ca. 1.4 mm long, puberulent, those at base of pedicels similar but less that 1 mm long. bracts small, opposite. Flowers functionally unisexual (and the plants monoecious). Calyx of 4 sepals; sepals imbricate. Corolla of 4 petals; petals deltate, valvate. Stamens 8, in 2 whorls, distinct; staminate flowers with sepals ovate, ca. 3.5 mm long, minutely puberulent, ovate, ca. 5 mm long, minutely puberulent, nectary disk minutely puberulent, ovary rudimentary, glabrous. Ovary superior, (pistillate flowers unknown), 4-celled and 4-lobed, carpels connate, only slightly distinct at apex to almost entirely distinct; ovules 2 per cell, hemitropous, 1 ascending; style 1, terminating in 4 short stigmatic branches.

Fruit: Fruit 14–15 mm wide; subtended by persistent sepals and petals; of distinct follicles 7–7.5 mm long; exocarp glabrous; with 2–3 concentric wrinkles; endocarp glabrous. the carpels dehiscing along the upper suture. Seeds 1–2 per cell; glossy black when ripe; crustaceous; ovoid; sometimes angled from compression; embryo straight in fleshy endosperm; radicle short; cotyledons compressed; ovate; putamen brown; warty.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Mesic forest.

Elevation Range: