Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs or small trees (1–)3–5 m tall, young parts very densely brown to reddish brown woolly tomentose.

Stems: Branches brown to reddish brown tomentose, occasionally glabrate.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades obovate to oblong–obovate, (4.5–)9–30 cm long, (1.5–)3–10 cm wide. Apex broadly acute to short-acuminate. Base attenuate. Upper surfaces with conspicuously impressed veins, glabrate; lower surfaces with raised veins, densely brown to dark reddish brown woolly tomentose, occasionally becoming sparsely so; blade, coriaceous, strongly and coarsely rugose; blade coriaceous. Margins entire, usually revolute. Lateral veins 7–20 pairs. Petioles (0.6–)1–3 cm long, usually narrowly winged. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences very densely brown to reddish brown woolly tomentose. peduncles 5–17 mm long, pedicels 2–9 mm long, bracts subulate, 2–10 mm long. Flowers unisexual, 5–15 in axillary or cauline, simple, corymbose inflorescences. Calyx narrowly to broadly cup shaped, sepals 5, distinct, narrowly to broadly ovate, 4–6.5 mm long, brown tomentose, apex acute. Corolla of 5 petals, white, 14–24 mm long. Stamens 5, alternate with the petals, distinct; filaments 10–11 mm long, those of pistillate flowers ca. 6 mm long; fertile anthers 3–4.3 mm long, those of pistillate flowers ca. 1 mm long. Ovary superior, 2-carpellate, 2–3-celled, on a short gynophore, placentation parietal; ovules numerous, in 2 rows per placenta; style 1; stigma capitate.

Fruit: Capsules broadly ovoid to subcuboid–ovoid; 18–25 mm long; brown to reddish brown tomentose when immature; glabrate at maturity; apex broadly acute; the persistent style 4–6 mm long; the valves with woody exocarp 2.7–4.7 mm thick; ± with a median ridge or furrow; the surface rugose–tuberculate; the troughs between the convolutions narrow and sometimes obscured; seed mass filling the capsules volume. Seeds ca. 17; black to reddish black; irregularly angled and compressed; 5–7 mm long.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Primarily in open bogs and wet forest; occasionally in diverse mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 640–1,520 m.