Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees or shrubs.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers solitary or in fascicles. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or unisexual. Calyx of 4–5 sepals, in a single whorl, distinct, strongly imbricate or quincuncial. Corolla shortly tubular, tube shorter than lobes, lobes (5–)7–10(–12), erect or spreading, entire or sometimes with a small lateral segment, reduced in pistillate flowers to small vestigial scales or absent. Stamens 7–10(–12), in a single whorl, often more than 1 opposite each corolla lobe, inserted at top of corolla tube, but with prominent filament traces to base of tube, exserted, sometimes a few converted to sterile petaloid or staminode-like structures, absent in pistillate flowers, staminodes irregular, usually only 1–2 in perfect or staminate flowers, these well–developed, sometimes petaloid, alternate with stamens. Ovary superior, 3–5(6)-celled.

Fruit: Berries yellow to orange or purple to purplish black or black; subglobose or obovoid to ellipsoid; ovoid; or oblong; (frequently with apiculate stylar remnant); glabrous or glabrate. Seeds 1 per fruit; not laterally compressed; scar broad; rounded; basi–ventral to basal; embryo vertical; oblique; or horizontal; with thin foliaceous cotyledons.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: