Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees or shrubs, often buttressed.

Stems: Branches spreading and drooping.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades ovate to narrowly lanceolate. Apex acute, acuminate, or caudate. Base ± unequal, cordate to cuneate. Upper surfaces glabrous to scabrid; lower surfaces glabrous to variously pubescent with pustulate–based hairs and,/or short, multicellular, glandular hairs. Margins serrate or denticulate. Pinnately veined and tripliveined at base. Petiolate. Stipules distinct, caducous, enclosing the terminal buds.

Flowers: Flowers numerous in axillary, paniculate or thyrsoid inflorescences, densely pubescent, bracts minute, caducous. Flowers unisexual (and the plants monoecious). Calyx of 4–5 sepals; sepals boat-shaped, induplicate in bud. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens introrse, equal in number to tepals, usually absent in pistillate flowers. Ovary superior slightly compressed, present but nonfunctional in staminate flowers.

Fruit: Fruit an ovoid to subglobose drupe; slightly compressed; glabrous. Seeds with a fleshy endosperm; embryo curved or involute; cotyledons narrow.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: