Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs or small trees 2–7 m tall, all parts with a strong anise odor, new growth densely minutely yellowish brown to whitish appressed puberulent and with somewhat of a waxy scurf, soon glabrate.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades elliptic to broadly elliptic, oblong–elliptic, or occasionally some of them elliptic–obovate, 4–33 cm long, 2–11.5 cm wide. Apex rounded and ± emarginate or acute. Base cuneate. Surfaces glabrate, except midrib on lower surfaces persistently somewhat appressed hirtellous, or lower surfaces also with scattered hairs; blades chartaceous to subcoriaceous. Margins entire flat to strongly revolute. Primary lateral veins usually 15–20 pairs, prominent, slightly upcurved distally, connected by a strongly 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 15–50 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 1–3 in minutely puberulent, but soon glabrate, axillary cymes 1.6–4 cm long, sometimes arising on stems below leaves, peduncles 5–25 mm long, pedicels usually 15–25 mm long, bracteoles subulate, puberulent, bracts small, opposite. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or functionally unisexual (and then plants monoecious). Calyx of 4 sepals; sepals imbricate, staminate flowers with sepals deltate, 4–4.5 mm long, ca. 4 mm wide, glabrous, pistillate flowers with sepals ovate, 3–4 mm long, glabrous, apex acute. Corolla of 4 petals, valvate, staminate flowers petals oblong–deltate to narrowly deltate, 8–15 mm long, ca. 5 mm wide, pistillate flowers petals greenish yellow to reddish, oblong–deltate to narrowly deltate, 6–10 mm long, ca. 3.8 mm wide. Stamens 8, in 2 whorls, distinct, reduced but always present in functionally pistillate flowers, pistillate flowers Stamens rudimentary. 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, staminate flowers nectary disk and rudimentary ovary glabrous; style slender, 3–5 mm long, pistillate flowers nectary disk and ovary glabrous; style slender, ca. 6 mm long, often exserted.

Fruit: Capsules 28–50 mm wide; carpels connate ca. ⅓–½ their length; 13–24 mm long; usually strongly reflexed; exocarp and endocarp glabrous. the carpels dehiscing along the upper suture; exocarp. Seeds 1–2 per carpel; 7–9 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 mesic to wet forest.

Elevation Range: 740–1,460 m.