Description
Key Characters:
Pedicel usually > 1 cm long; corolla (usually) yellowish or cream; fruit yellow
Growth Form:
Tree or shrub, stiff-branched 3-15 m tall; Gynodioecious.
Stems:
Roots:
Leaves:
alternate
elliptic to obovate, flat, longitudinally rolled, wavy or even distally deflexed, 2.5–12.0 x 1.5–5.2 cm;
apex acute to round, occasionally retuse
base cuneate to round
blade indument variable, usually greyish tomentulose on both surfaces, often ferruginous or mixed
leaf venation brochidodromous, secondaries many, straight; tertiary veins parallel with secondaries, sometimes admedial, almost perpendicular to the midvein, laxly reticulate in the distal part
Flowers:
Flowers 1–5 in axillary fascicles
Flowers bisexual or female, 5-merous, 1–5 in axillary fascicles; pedicel 1–9(–10) mm long, tomentulose with brown indument
sepals 2.5–5.0 mm long, with round to acute apex, indumentum outside of the same kind as the pedicel, glabrous inside, sometimes with some trichomes at apex and along the margin
corolla 2.5–6.0 mm long, dome-shaped, yellowish or cream, rarely greenish, glabrous; corolla tube and lobes of about equal length, lobes triangular to ovate
stamens inserted in the middle of the corolla tube or sometimes just below tube orifice, shorter than the corolla, glabrous; anthers 1.0–1.1 mm long; staminodes 1.2–2.0 mm long, inserted in lobe sinuses, lanceolate to triangular in bisexual flowers, fan-s
gynoecium usually with 5 locules, flask-shaped to conical, usually vermilion hirsute around the base; style included within the corolla; apex with minute stigmatic areas
Fruit:
Fruit 12–33 3 9–26 mm; yellow; ovoid to globose; apex round to acuminate; crowned by a 0.5–4.0 mm long remnant style; young fruit often pubescent; glabrescent; 1–5-seeded or with all five ovules aborted
Seeds with a brown; shiny to dull testa; 11–25 x 13–16 mm; laterally compressed; boat-shaped; seed scar +/- 90% of the seed length; covering the adaxial surface; cotyledons foliaceous; white; with an exserted radicle below the commissure; endosperm present
Ploidy:
Habitat:
In the scrub of open plateau on the leeward side of Lanai.
Elevation Range:
300–1220 m