Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees up to 8 m tall.

Stems: Branches grayish brown.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades oblanceolate to narrowly obovate, 11.2–22.3 cm long, 3.5–7.4 cm wide. Lower surfaces glabrous to somewhat puberulent; blades membranous to chartaceous, domatia small or absent; sometimes entire leaf pink or rose-colored on lower surface. Margins sometimes weakly revolute. Lateral veins 10–13 pairs, venation or sometimes entire leaf pink or rose–colored on lower surface. Petioles 1.2–2.5 cm long. Stipules broadly ovate, up to 8 mm long.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences with 1 main axis and 2–3 nodes of verticillate branching, each branch usually terminated by a 3–flowered cymule, peduncles 0.2–0.5(–1) cm long, terminal flower of each cymule on a short pedicel directly from branch, lateral flowers pedicellate, all of the inflorescence branches subtended by small caducous bracts. Flowers insect-pollinated, functionally unisexual, 4–5-merous, usually heterostylous. (The flowers of P. hobdyi are probably dimorphic and functionally dioecious, but this cannot be confirmed because of the limited number of specimens available for study). Calyx 4-6 lobed, cupular, 2.5–3.5 mm long and about as wide, somewhat or not at all expanded toward the subtruncate apex, glabrous or pubescent, the tube usually shorter than the hypanthium. Corolla white, 4-6-lobed, tube 20–24 mm long, slightly expanded toward apex, throat glabrous, the lobes ovate–subulate, 4.5–5.5 mm long, reflexed at anthesis; nectary disk present at apex of ovary. Stamens as many as and alternate with the corolla lobes; filaments 1–2 mm long, usually inserted on the corolla tube or throat; anthers ca. 1 mm long, exserted at anthesis in functionally staminate flowers, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary inferior, occasionally partly so, or very rarely superior, 2–celled, placentation basal; ovules 1 per cell, erect, anatropous, ca. 5 mm long at anthesis; style 1 or as many as carpels, terminal, slender, narrow, 17–20 mm long; stigmas 2, small, pubescent, not opening in functionally staminate flowers, divergent in functionally pistillate flowers, dry or occasionally wet.

Fruit: Fruit drupaceous; orange; globose–ellipsoid or fusiform; 8–9 mm long; capped by the persistent calyx tube 2–3 mm long; pyrenes 1-2(-4); basically triangular in cross section; endocarp usually thick and hard. Seeds 1 per pyrene; usually conforming to the form of the pyrene; seed coat thin; with a small T-shaped invagination on the ventral side; endosperm otherwise not ruminate; carnose; the embryo small with flat; thin cotyledons; seeds with well-developed oily endosperm; or endosperm occasionally scanty or absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Very localized in mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 600–610 m.