Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small branched trees or shrubs 1.5–4.5 m tall.

Stems: Branches pale to dark brown, tortuous, glabrous.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades oblong–elliptic, elliptic, or elliptic–obovate, 4.5–8.5 cm long, 3–4.7 cm wide. Apex obtuse to rounded, usually shallowly emarginate. Base broadly cuneate to subtruncate. Surfaces glabrous, leaves dark green, dull when dry, young ones dark purplish red, somewhat clustered toward the tips of the branches, coriaceous. Margins entire and revolute. Midrib prominent, lateral veins ca.7–10 pairs, moderately prominent, especially in dried specimens, ca. 4–7 mm apart, submarginal vein absent. Petioles 3–7 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 2–5 (up to 12 according to hosaka) in bracteolate fascicles below and occasionally among the leaves, pedicels 4–7.5 mm long, glabrous. Flowers apparently bisexual (perfect). Calyx 4–5(6)-lobed, usually deeply so, the lobes imbricate or valvate in bud, punctate or with secretory lines, lobes ca. 0.5–1 mm long, margins sparsely ciliate. Petals cream–colored(?), 4–5(6)-lobed, the lobes nearly distinct or connate up to ½ their length, imbricate in bud, narrowly oblanceolate, 3.5–4.2 mm long, with conspicuous secretory lines, margins sparsely ciliate. Anthers ca. 1.8–2 mm long, apex with a small tuft of hairs. Ovary superior, 3–5(6)-carpellate, 1-celled; ovules few in a single row, ovary reduced and sterile or absent in staminate flowers; style very short or absent, terminal; stigma sessile, capitate-angled.

Fruit: Drupes dark purple; broadly ellipsoid to subglobose; ca. 5–8 mm in diameter. Seeds 1 per fruit; small; dark colored; subglobose; excavated at base.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Diverse mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 1,060–1,220 m.