Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs or small trees 2–6 m tall, rarely lianas.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, Leaves usually evenly spaced. Blades oblanceolate to elliptic or obovate, 6.4–16 cm long, 2.6–6.5 cm wide. Apex short–acuminate, acute, or sometimes obtuse or rounded. Base obtuse, cuneate, or attenuate. Upper surfaces glabrous; lower surfaces sparsely short–hirtellous, sometimes only along principal veins or glabrous; blades membranous to chartaceous. Margins entire. Lateral veins relatively inconspicuous, arcuate, +/- slightly raised on lower surface, higher order venation inconspicuous. Petioles (0–)0.3–1.7 cm long. Stipules 5–8 mm long, adnate to petioles only at base.

Flowers: Flowers in paniculate inflorescences, axillary or on very short, leafless, lateral branches, sometimes also terminal, inflorescences 2–6 cm long, short–hirtellous or sometimes glabrous, peduncles 4–12 mm long, pedicels 2–5 mm long. Flowers insect-pollinated, bisexual (perfect) or sometimes functionally unisexual, often heterostylous. Calyx lobes erect or slightly spreading, narrowly deltate to linear–deltate, 0.5–0.6 mm long, glabrous or ciliate. Corolla greenish white, the tube sometimes reddish tinged or purple, fleshy, fusiform in bud, salverform, the tube 4–6.5 mm long, +/- puberulent, the limb gradually expanded, weakly quadrangular, 4-5-lobed, the lobes linear, 2.8–3.5 mm long, each with a terminal fleshy appendage; nectary disc present. Stamens as many as and alternate with the corolla lobes, inserted on corolla tube midway or near throat; anthers sessile or on short filaments, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary inferior or partly so, 2(-4)-locular; ovules few to numerous on fleshy placentas near middle of septum; style as many as carpels, cylindrical to filiform, terminal, slender; stigma bilobed or subcapitate, included or exserted.

Fruit: Fruit drupaceous; dark blue or purplish black; 4–6 mm in diameter; persistent calyx lobes erect to somewhat spreading. Seeds few to numerous; variable in shape; hat or fan-shaped and laterally cuneate and compressed; or ovoid to ellipsoid with conspicuous bubble-shaped bodies included in the areoles (cells); or flat and broadly winged with a lateral hilum attached at wing margin; or bricklike or blocky with a centeric adaxial hilum; with well-developed oily endosperm; or endosperm occasionally scanty or absent.

Ploidy: 2n = 72*

Habitat: Occurring in mesic to wet forest.

Elevation Range: 400–1830 m.