Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Many-branched shrubs or small trees 1.5–4(–7) m tall.

Stems: Branches brown to reddish brown, glabrous.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades oblanceolate or elliptic–oblanceolate to obovate, 1–3(–5.8) cm long, 0.3–1(–1.5) cm wide. Apex rounded to occasionally subobtuse, emarginate, sometimes inconspicuously so. Base cuneate to attenuate. Surfaces usually dark green, young ones yellow with a red or purple tinge, usually well–distributed along the upper branches, coriaceous; upper surfaces wrinkled when dry. Margins entire and slightly revolute. Midrib prominent, venation otherwise obscure, glabrous, punctate. Petioles 5–8 mm long, glabrous or occasionally sparsely brown puberulent. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in pedicels 3–8 mm long, glabrous or brown puberulent. Flowers apparently bisexual (perfect), (1)2–5 in bracteolate fascicles among and below the leaves. Calyx 4–5(6)-lobed, usually deeply so, the lobes imbricate or valvate in bud, punctate or with secretory lines, lobes 0.6–0.8 mm long, margins ciliate. Corolla of 4–5(6) petals; petals pale yellowish white with a reddish tinge or purple, the lobes nearly distinct or connate up to ½ their length, imbricate in bud, oblong–oblanceolate, 2.5–3.5 mrn long, with secretory lines, glabrous to minutely puberulent, margins ciliate. Anthers ca. 1.8 mm long, apex with a small tuft of hairs. Ovary superior, ± glandular puberulent, 3–5(6)-carpellate, 1-celled; ovules few in a single row, ovary reduced and sterile or absent in staminate flowers; style very short or absent, terminal; stigma capitate-angled.

Fruit: Drupes purplish black; globose; ca. 6–8 mm in diameter. Seeds 1 per fruit; small; dark colored; subglobose; excavated at base.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Mesic to wet forest and bogs.

Elevation Range: 300–1,470 m.