Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Many-branched, sprawling, decumbent to ascending shrub to 3 m long.

Stems: Stems leaning or tangled in adjacent vegetation, occasionally rooting when in contact with wet soil, very sparingly muricate on the lower trunk, denser on younger stems, leaf scars prominent, nearly orbicular, latex white.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Leaves clustered at the ends of the branches. Blades elliptic to oblanceolate, 26–29 cm long x 4–6 cm wide. Juvenile leaves weakly dimorphic, the lobes more distinct than in adult leaves but cut less than ½ way to midrib. Apex acuminate; juvenile leaves leaf apex rounded. Base narrowly cuneate. Upper surfaces dark green and mostly glabrous; lower surfaces paler, midrib usually purple (live material), sparsely pubescent, more so on midrib; blades chartaceous. Margins shallowly and irregularly lobed, the lobes 2–6 mm deep, crenate, undulate. Petioles 3–4 cm long, sparsely muricate, pubescent. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescence axillary, among the lower leaves, peduncles 6–15 mm long, 5–10 flowered, glabrous to sparsely pubescent, bracts caducous (not seen), bracteoles caducous, 1 mm, lanceolate to elliptic, acute, sparsely pubescent. Flowers bisexual (perfect); pedicels pubescent, 5–9 mm long, bracteoles usually 1–2 per pedicel, persistent, sparsely pubescent, occurring on basal ¼–1⁄2 of pedicel. Calyx green, the lobes deltate, 4–6 mm long x 2–3 mm wide, margins crenate, undulate, glabrous to sparsely pubescent, purple (most apparent in live material), apex acute to short acuminate. Corolla white, muricate on corolla lobes especially in bud and distally prior to anthesis, gently curved, 45–55 mm long x 4–5 mm wide, longitudinally pubescent along corolla tube, lobes approximately ⅓ the length of the tube, reflexed, hypanthium 4–5 mm long x 4–5 mm wide, sparsely pubescent. Stamens 5, alternate with corolla lobes, connate. 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 small; 5–10 mm; globose; sepals caducous; orange at maturity. Seeds brown; smooth; round to ellipsoid; < 1 mm.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurs in <i>Metrosideros</i> lowland wet forest.

Elevation Range: ca. 1268 m.