Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Scandent shrubs.

Stems: Stems glabrous, sometimes rooting where in contact with ground, up to 5 m long, few–branched, arcuate.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades oblong–elliptic to elliptic or narrowly elliptic, slightly asymmetrical, 13–22 cm long, 3–7.5 cm wide. Apex long–acuminate or sometimes attenuate. Base cuneate or sometimes attenuate. Surfaces glabrous, green on upper surface; lower surfaces pale green and irregularly marked with purple or brownish purple areas, coriaceous. Margins entire. Lateral veins strongly ascending, only slightly arcuate, higher order venation obscure, evident veins few. Petioles 1.8–5.5 cm long, upper surface ragged, appearing grooved as a result of the stipular scars. Stipules membranous, completely adnate to petioles to form a cup 25–40 mm high that collects water and debris, quickly becoming ripped along petiole margins as stem and leaves elongate, caducous by second or third node, apex abruptly acuminate, prolonged into a thinly fleshy mucro 7–9 mm long.

Flowers: Flowers in dense, axillary thyrsoid inflorescences, peduncles 1–12 mm long, pedicels 1–2 mm long, bracts connate, ovate, 6–10 mm long; hypanthium turbinate, 1.5–2 mm long. Flowers insect-pollinated, heterostylous, apparently bisexual (perfect) or functionally pistillate. Calyx 4-5-lobed, lobes ovate, 2–3 mm long, margins fimbriolate. Corolla yellowish green, the tube tinged reddish purple, fleshy, funnelform, slightly dimorphic, 4-5-lobed, those of short–styled flowers bulging at the throat due to underlying anthers, those of long–styled flowers scarcely bulging, the tube 6.5–9 mm long, the limb abruptly expanded from tube in bud, strongly quadrangular, the lobes broadly ovate, 2.5–3 mm long, apex with a minute appendage. Stamens as many as and alternate with the corolla lobes, inserted on corolla lobe; anthers fertile in short–styled flowers, sterile in long–styled flowers, dithecal, opening by logitudinal slits. Ovary inferior or partly so, 2(-4)-locular; ovules few to numerous on fleshy placentas near middle of septum; style as many as carpels, glabrous, 2-lobed, the lobes firmly appressed together in short-syled flowers, exserted and spreading in long-styled flowers; stigma bilobed or subcapitate, included or exserted.

Fruit: Fruit drupaceous; subglobose; 4–5 mm in diameter when dry; indehiscent. Seeds dark brown; irregularly shaped; minutely papillose; with well-developed oily endosperm; or endosperm occasionally scanty or absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Rare on steep slopes of the windward (eastern) and less commonly leeward side of Mount Kāhili; along Wahiawa Stream; and one population just below upper rim of Kalalau Valley; Kaua'i.

Elevation Range: