Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Evergreen shrubs or small trees up to 8 m tall.
Stems:
Branches with reddish peltate hairs.
Roots:
Leaves:
Leaves simple.
Alternate.
Blades oblanceolate, 4–11 cm long, 1–2.5 cm wide.
Apex rounded to acute.
Surfaces glabrous, glandular dots inconspicuous; blades coriaceous, aromatic when crushed.
Margins somewhat revolute, remotely serrulate or serrate in upper ½.
Pinnately veined.
Short-petiolate.
Stipules absent.
Flowers:
Flowers usually in branched catkins borne among leaves of the current year's growth, each pistillate flower subtended by a primary bract.
Flowers unisexual, perianth absent.
Calyx (sepals) absent.
Corolla (petals) absent.
Stamens (2–)4(–10), progressively fewer toward apex of inflorescence; anthers extrorse, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits, nectary disk present at base of stamens.
Ovary superior (pistillate flower), 2-carpellate, 1-celled; ovule 1, basal, erect, orthotropous; style 2-lobed. Rudimentary ovary occasionally present in staminate flowers.
Fruit:
Fruit drupaceous; dark red or blackish when mature; slightly fleshy.
Seeds with little or no endosperm; embryo straight; with 2 plano-convex cotyledons.
Ploidy:
Habitat:
Mesic to wet forest.
Elevation Range:
150–1,310 m.