Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small trees up to 3 m tall.

Stems: Young branches appressed pubescent.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades ovate or narrowly to broadly elliptic, 2–5.5 cm long, 0.6–2.8 cm wide. Apex acute or rounded. Base acute or rounded, often ± tapering toward base. Surfaces glabrous, petioles glabrous or puberulent, membranous or coriaceous, 2–5.5 cm long, 0.6–2.8 cm wide. Margins entire. Pinnately veined. Petioles 2–3 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in peduncles very short, hirsute, rachis clavate, 2–11 mm long, hirsute, pedicels 0.8–3 mm long. Flowers unisexual, greenish yellow, puberulent, becoming glabrate. Calyx tube of staminate flowers 4–8.5 mm long, outer lobes 1.7–3.5 mm long, 1.3–3.5 mm wide, inner lobes 1.5–3.2 mm long, 1–3.4 mm wide; Calyx tube of pistillate flowers 4–5.5 mm long, outer lobes 2–3.5 mm long, 1.5–3.4 mm wide, inner lobes 1.6–3 mm long, 1.4–3.4 mm wide. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 8, the lower whorl included, the upper whorl sometimes shortly exserted.

Fruit: Fruit dark red; elliptic; 7–13 mm long; 4–10 mm in diameter. fruit drupaceous. Seeds without endosperm.

Ploidy: 2n = 18*

Habitat: Rather common on <i>‘a‘ā</i> lava and in pastures; often in association with <i>Lantana camara</i> and other alien vegetation.

Elevation Range: (250–)450–1,220 m.