Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Sprawling, few–branched shrubs or trees 1–2(–4) m tall, new growth reddish brown short–hirtellous, becoming glabrate.

Stems: Branches green or reddish brown to dark reddish brown.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate, subverticillate (i.e. some internodes short, followed by 1 that is longer), those of young growth often more evenly spaced. Blades oblanceolate to elliptic–obovate or occasionally elliptic, 7–18 cm long, (2.5–)3–6 cm wide. Apex acute to obtuse, occasionally some of them rounded. Base tapering to the broadly cuneate or subtruncate base. Surfaces sparsely to moderately short–hirtellous (the hairs whitish in fresh material, becoming reddish brown in dry material); upper surfaces soon glabrate except for midrib; lower surfaces gradually becoming glabrate, midrib moderately to densely short–hirtellous; usually dark green, subcoriaceous. Margins remotely denticulate and revolute. Midrib usually dark reddish purple, lateral veins moderately conspicuous, submarginal vein present. Petioles 3–12 mm long, ± short–hirtellous. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in pedicels red, 7–10 mm long, moderately short–hirtellous. Flowers apparently unisexual (and the plants dioecious), 5–20 in bracteolate fascicles among and below the leaves. Calyx red, 4–5(6)-lobed, usually deeply so, the lobes imbricate or valvate in bud, punctate or with secretory lines, the lobes ca. 1 mm long, short–hirtellous, margins conspicuously white ciliate. Corolla 4–5(6)-lobed, the lobes nearly distinct or connate up to ½ their length, imbricate in bud, narrowly oblanceolate, 3–4.5 mm long, ± short–hirtellous, margins conspicuously ciliate. petals red. Anthers ca. 2.5 mm long, those of pistillate flowers slightly smaller and sterile, apex with a small tuft of hairs. Ovary superior, 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 dark bluish black; ca. 8 mm in diameter. Seeds 1 per fruit; small; dark colored; subglobose; excavated at base.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Diverse mesic forest to wet forest and margins of bogs.

Elevation Range: 1,120–1,400 m.