Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Palm-like trees 3–9 m tall.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades oblanceolate, blades 60–75 cm long, 10–17 cm wide. Apex obtuse. Base sessile. Upper surfaces glabrous; lower surfaces pubescent at least along the veins. Margins minutely callose–denticulate. Petioles absent. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences 10–20–flowered, peduncles 25–40 mm long, pedicels 6–10 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect); hypanthium obconical, 15–20 mm long, 8–13 mm wide. Calyx lobes shallowly deltate to shallowly triangular, 3–4 mm long, 4–5 mm wide, apex acute. Corolla purplish, 60–80 mm long, 6–11 mm wide, glabrous, the tube suberect to slightly curved, the lobes ¼–1⁄2 as long as the tube, all curved downward in the same plane, the corolla thus appearing unilabiate. Stamens 5, alternate with corolla lobes, connate; staminal column glabrous; anthers glabrous, the lower 2 with apical tufts of white hairs. Ovary inferior, 2-celled; ovule placentation axile; stigma 2-lobed, wet or dry, appressed and nonreceptive as the style grows through the anther tube, pushing out the pollen, after which the stigmas spread apart and become receptive.

Fruit: Berries ellipsoid to obovoid; 30–45 mm long; 20–28 mm wide. Seeds numerous.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Formerly occurring in wet forest; eastern Molokai.

Elevation Range: ca. 600 m.