Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs 0.8–2 m tall.

Stems: Stems subherbaceous, woody only at base, unbranched or rarely sparingly branched from base, pubescent.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades broadly elliptic to broadly obovate, blades 15–42 cm long, 8–15 cm wide. Apex acuminate. Base rounded to cuneate. Upper surfaces green, pubescent; lower surfaces whitish green, densely pubescent. Margins erose. Petioles 3–9 cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences 12–28–flowered inflorescences 70–180 mm long, pubescent, pedicels 5–10 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect); hypanthium obovoid, 4–6 mm long. Calyx lobes narrowly triangular, 2–5 mm long, apex acuminate. Corolla white tinged or streaked with purple, 20–28 mm long, 3–4 mm wide, glabrous, the tube suberect to gently curved, the lobes spreading, ¼–⅓ as long as the tube. Stamens 5, alternate with corolla lobes, connate; staminal column white, pubescent toward apex; anthers white, pubescent, 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 orange; globose to ellipsoid; 7–10 mm long; crowned by the persistent calyx lobes. Seeds numerous.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring in wet forest; Kohala Mountains; windward Mauna Kea; and windward Mauna Loa; Hawai'i.

Elevation Range: 610–1,300 m.