Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees 5–15 m tall.

Stems: Branches somewhat quadrangular, viscid and appressed puberulent.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, clustered toward the tips of the branches, thin or occasionally thick, chartaceous. Blades oblanceolate to elliptic–oblanceolate, 6–27 cm long, 3.5–10 cm wide. Upper surfaces with remnants of viscid exudate and puberulent along midrib; lower surfaces puberulent, especially along veins, domatia usually present in the axils of the lateral veins. Margins entire. Lateral veins 10–18 pairs, these prominent. Petioles 0.1–0.8 cm long, subappressed puberulent. Stipules connate into a collar 3–7 mm long, viscid and puberulent.

Flowers: Flowers solitary, terminal, pedicels 3–17 mm long, 4–6–angled, viscid and appressed puberulent; hypanthium narrowly funnelform, 8–12 mm long, 4–6–angled, often costate, formed by lower part of calyx and enclosed ovary, apically lined with a shallow nectary disk. Flowers insect-pollinated, bisexual (perfect) or rarely unisexual, often heterostylous, fragrant, opening in late afternoon, lasting ca. 2 days. Calyx cup-shaped, 3–5 mm long, viscid and puberulent, apically produced into 4–6 terminal spurs, these coriaceous, obliquely linear– spatulate and sigmoid, rarely only falcate, (23–)30–46 mm long, 5–8(–11) mm wide, sparsely puberulent. Corolla cream–colored externally, white within, thick, 7–9– lobed, the tube 17–27 mm long (when dry), the lobes 16–22 mm long (when dry). Stamens as many as and alternate with the corolla lobes, included; filaments short, usually inserted on the corolla tube or throat; anthers 14–16 mm long; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits, dorsifixed above middle, linear-oblong, included or scarcely exserted from corolla at anthesis. Ovary inferior, occasionally partly so, or very rarely superior, 1-celled or falsely 2-celled, placentas 2-8, parietal; ovules numerous; style 1, terminal, slender; stigmas connate or 2-lobed, dry or occasionally wet.

Fruit: Fruit yellow to orange; broadly ellipsoid; 1.8–4.5 cm in diameter; prominently costate; terminated by somewhat persistent calyx spurs; pericarp hard; exocarp thin; mesocarp fibrous-coriaceous; endocarp bonypulp bright reddish orange. Seeds numerous; horizontally embedded in pulp; straw–colored; ovoid to ellipsoid; compressed; 1.8–2.2 mm long; with well-developed oily endosperm; or endosperm occasionally scanty or absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Uncommon in mesic to occasionally wet forest.

Elevation Range: 100–730 m.