Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrub, 1.5 m tall, spreading, often prostrate.

Stems: Young branches densely reddish brown appressed pubescent, stems robust.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades elliptic, ovate to orbicular, or obovate, up to 4 cm long and 3 cm wide. Apex rounded to acute. Base cuneate to rounded, sometimes acute, rarely subcordate. Upper surfaces dark to grayish green; lower surfaces lighter, sometimes glaucous; blades thick and firm.Veins glabrous, with scattered hairs, or pilose, petioles glabrous or with scattered hairs. Margins entire. Pinnately veined. Petioles 1–2.5(–4) mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in peduncles 1–6 mm long, hirsute, rachis clavate, conical to cylindrical, sometimes forked, 2–20(–50) mm long, hirsute. Flowers unisexual, on Maui sometimes bisexual (perfect), yellow, glabrous, with scattered hairs, or puberulent; pedicels 0.8–3 mm long, glabrous, with a few hairs, or pilose. Calyx tube of staminate flowers 5.5–9(–11.5) mm long, outer lobes 1.5–4.5 mm long, 1–3.8 mm wide, inner lobes 1.2–4 mm long, 1.2– 3.5 mm wide; Calyx tube of pistillate flowers 3.5–8 mm long, outer lobes 1.5–3.8 mm long, 1–3 mm wide, inner lobes 1.2–3.2mm long, 1.2–3 mm wide; Calyx tube of perfect flowers 5–9 mm long, outer lobes 1.6–4.5 mm long, 1.5–3.7 mm wide, inner lobes 1.3–4 mm long, 1.3–3.5 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 to dark crimson; ellipsoid; 8–11 mm long; 5–10 mm in diameter. fruit drupaceous. Seeds without endosperm.

Ploidy: 2n = 72*

Habitat: Rare or scattered on dry ridges; open hillsides; ledges; windswept headlands; clay flats; <i>‘a‘ā</i> lava; coastal; and low; dry; open; alien vegetation.

Elevation Range: 3–420(–670) m.