Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Spreading trees 5–30 m tall, with colorless latex.

Stems: Branches terete (cylindrical).

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound (trifoliate). Alternate. Blades ovate to oblong–ovate, 6–12 cm long, 3–7 cm wide, leaflets 3. Apex caudate-cuspidate. Base cuneate. Leaflets often drooping. Margins crenulate–serrulate. Petioles 8–16 cm long, petiolules unequal. Stipules linear–lanceolate, ca. 4–5 mm long, quickly deciduous.

Flowers: Flowers in axillary panicles arising toward the ends of the branches, staminate inflorescences highly branched, pistillate ones sometimes subracemose. Flowers unisexual. Calyx of 5 sepals; sepals cream–colored to pale green or pale yellow. Staminate flowers with sepals subvalvate. Pistillate flowers with sepals imbricate, caducous. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens in staminate flowers 5, opposite the sepals; filaments adnate to base of rudimentary ovary; anthers introrse, at first enclosed by the hooded sepals pistillate flower staminodes absent or minute. Ovary superior; staminate flower pistillode short–stipitate, peltate; pistillate flower ovary (2)3(4)-celled; ovules 2 per cell; style short; stigmas (2)3(4), linear-subulate, entire.

Fruit: Berry-like; small; subglobose; endocarp thin; crustaceous; pinkish to dull red and orangish brown; globose; 8–16 mm in diameter. Seeds 3–6 per fruit; seed coat smooth; endosperm copious.

Ploidy: 2n = 196

Habitat:

Elevation Range: