Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Stout annual herbs 1–3 m tall. pubescent with nonglandular and multicellular glandular hairs containing aromatic and psychotropic compounds.
Stems:
Roots:
Leaves:
Leaves compound (palmate).
Opposite.
Leaflets (1–)3–7(–11), narrowly lanceolate to linear 5–15 cm long, 0.3–1.5 cm wide.
Lower surfaces sparsely to densely pubescent.
Leaflet margins serrate.
Petiolate.
Stipules present, persistent.
Flowers:
Flowers in staminate flowers in leafy panicles; pistillate flowers in small, leafy clusters, each flower surrounded by a solitary bract, apex abruptly acuminate. in axillary, cymose inflorescences in the usually reduced upper leaves, staminate inflorescences many–flowered and relatively open, pistillate ones few–flowered and compact.
Flowers unisexual (and the plants dioecious or sometimes monoecious), small and inconspicuous, green.
Calyx of staminate flowers with 5 sepals ca. 4–5 mm long. oblong, imbricate. Calyx of pistillate flowers scarcely lobed.
Corolla (petals) absent.
Stamens in staminate flower 5; anthers subsessile, staminate flowers Stamens 5, opposite the sepals; anthers dithecal, pistillate flowers Stamens absent.
Ovary superior (pistillate flowers), 2-carpellate, 1-celled; placentation subapical; ovule 1, anatropous; stigmas 2, cylindrical. Staminate flowers ovary absent.
Fruit:
Achenes pale yellow to brown; smooth; shiny; 4–5 mm long; the fruiting bract up to ca. 8 mm long. fruit a scarcely compressed; lenticular achene enclosed by an accrescent bract.
Seeds with sparse; fleshy; oily endosperm.
Ploidy:
2n = 20; 40; 80
Habitat:
Cultivated.
Elevation Range:
Island Status
Ni'ihau(Incl. Lehua) Unknown
Kaua'i
Only found in cultivation
O'ahu Only found in cultivation
Molokai Unknown
Lana'i Unknown
Kaho'olawe Unknown
Maui Only found in cultivation
Hawai'i Only found in cultivation