Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small many-branched shrubs 0.8–1.5 m tall.

Stems: Branches reddish brown to dark purplish brown, young ones brown short–hirtellous.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate, closely spaced along upper branches. Blades narrowly elliptic to narrowly oblong–elliptic or narrowly oblanceolate, 1.2–1.6(–3.2) cm long, 0.3–0.6 cm wide. Apex acute to obtuse. Base attenuate. Surfaces glabrous, conspicuously brown punctate; pale green, becoming dark green at maturity. Margins serrulate in upper one–third, slightly revolute throughout. Midrib prominent, lateral veins obscure. Petioles often flattened, 1–1.5 mm long, sparsely brown short–hirtellous. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 1–2 in bracteolate fascicles among the leaves, plants occasionally flowering, pedicels 1–2 mm long, glabrous. Flowers often appearing bisexual (perfect) but possibly unisexual (and then plants dioecious). Calyx 4–5(6)-lobed, usually deeply so, the lobes imbricate or valvate in bud, punctate or with secretory lines, lobes 0.8–1 mm long, glabrous, margins ciliate. Corolla of 4–5(6) petals; petals pale yellowish green, the lobes nearly distinct or connate up to ½ their length, imbricate in bud, linear–oblanceolate, 2.5–3.5 mm long, both surfaces glabrous, margins sparsely ciliate. Anthers ca. 1.2 mm long, slightly reduced and sterile in pistillate flowers, 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 capitate-angled.

Fruit: Drupes purplish black; globose; ca. 6–8 mm in diameter. Seeds 1 per fruit; small; dark colored; subglobose; excavated at base.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Bogs and wet forest surrounding bogs.

Elevation Range: 1,060–1,390 m.