Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Palm-like trees 4–6 m tall.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades oblanceolate, blades 50–100 cm long, 10–20 cm wide. Apex acute. Base cuneate. Surfaces glabrous or lower surfaces densely pubescent. Margins callose–crenulate. Petioles 5–8 cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences 5–15–flowered at apex, pendent, hanging below the leaves, densely pubescent, peduncles 300–350 mm long, pedicels 2–6 mm long, bracts oblanceolate, 24–45 mm long, apex obtuse to acute. Flowers bisexual (perfect); hypanthium obconical, 10–16 mm long, densely pubescent. Calyx lobes narrowly oblong, 10–16 mm long. Corolla whitish to cream, 55–80 mm long, 7–11 mm wide, densely pubescent, the tube curved, the lobes ¾ as long to as long as the tube. Stamens 5, alternate with corolla lobes, connate; staminal column glabrous; anthers glabrous, the lower 2 with apical tufts of white hairs. Ovary inferior, 2-celled; ovule placentation axile; stigma 2-lobed, wet or dry, appressed and nonreceptive as the style grows through the anther tube, pushing out the pollen, after which the stigmas spread apart and become receptive.

Fruit: Berries yellow to orange; obovoid; 16–22 mm long; 10–16 mm wide. Seeds numerous.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring in mesic forest; O'ahu.

Elevation Range: 580–610 m.