Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs.

Stems: New growth densely yellowish brown tomentose or sometimes puberulent, ± becoming glabrate, stems wand-like, 1–5 m long.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, usually widely spaced. Blades narrowly to broadly elliptic, oblong–elliptic, sometimes suborbicular, elliptic–ovate, or elliptic–obovate, 5.5–18 cm long, 3.5–11 cm wide. Apex rounded, sometime obtuse, and emarginate or sometimes mucronate. Base broadly cuneate to rounded or truncate. Upper surfaces sparsely puberulent to glabrate, but midrib usually persistently puberulent; lower surfaces sparsely to moderately pilose and densely so along midrib; blades, coriaceous and brittle. Margins entire. Primary lateral veins usually 5–18 pairs, straight, spreading, distally curving and connected by an arched vein 2–8 mm from margin, venation pinnate, lateral veins connected by an arched submarginal vein, higher order venation forming a reticulate pattern. Petioles 10–40 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers (1–) 3–9(–11) in densely or sometimes moderately puberulent, axillary cymes usually 2– 5(–8) cm long, peduncles 8–30(–55) mm long, pedicels 2–6 mm long, bracteoles deltate or deltate-lanceolate, 0.3–1 mm long, lowest ones up to 4 mm long, bracts small, opposite. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or functionally unisexual (and then plants monoecious). Calyx of 4 sepals; sepals imbricate, pistillate flowers with sepals broadly ovate to ovate, 2–4 mm long, sparsely to moderately puberulent or sometimes glabrate, staminate flowers with sepals broadly ovate, 3.5–5.5 mm long, sparsely to moderately puberulent or sometimes glabrate. Corolla of 4 petals, valvate; staminate flowers petals narrowly deltate, 6–11 mm long, glabrous or sparsely puberulent, nectary disk and ovary glabrous, pistillate flowers petals narrowly deltate, 4–9 mm long, glabrous or sparsely puberulent, nectary disk and ovary glabrous, style ca. 4 mm long. Stamens 8, in 2 whorls, distinct, reduced but always present in functionally pistillate flowers. Ovary superior, 4-celled and 4-lobed, carpels connate, only slightly distinct at apex to almost entirely distinct; ovules 2 per cell, hemitropous, 1 ascending; style 1, terminating in 4 short stigmatic branches.

Fruit: Capsules (13–)18–40 mm wide; carpels connate ca. 1/5–½ their length; (6–)8–20 mm long; straight or slightly recurved; exocarp glabrate or with scattered short hairs; endocarp glabrous or sometimes with scattered hairs over the surface or along margins of suture. the carpels dehiscing along the upper suture; exocarp. Seeds 1–2 per carpel; 6–10 mm long. glossy black when ripe; crustaceous; ovoid; sometimes angled from compression; embryo straight in fleshy endosperm; radicle short; cotyledons compressed; ovate; putamen brown; warty.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring in wet forest at the margins of bogs; usually in dense shade.

Elevation Range: 1,130–1,520 m.