Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs 0.7–1.75 m tall, young parts densely reddish brown to brown or occasionally part pale brown and part whitish tomentose.

Stems: Branches grey to medium brown, tomentose, subglabrate.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades broadly to narrowly obovate or spatulate, 3.5–7 cm long. Apex obtuse to rounded or acute to occasionally short-acuminate. Base attenuate. Upper surfaces with prominently impressed veins, ± pale brown to reddish brown tomentose, rarely whitish tomentose when very young, soon glabrate; lower surfaces densely tan to to golden yellow tomentose; blades subcoriaceous to coriaceous, moderately rugose. Margins entire, slightly to strongly revolute. Lateral veins 5–9 pairs. Petioles (0.5–)1–5.5 cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences densely reddish brown to brown or occasionally part pale brown and part whitish tomentose. peduncles 3–25 (–55) mm long, pedicels usually slender, 2– 32 mm long, bracts subulate to lanceolate, 3–12 mm long. Flowers functionally unisexual, 5–14 in terminal, axillary, or cauline, simple, corymbose inflorescences. Calyx broadly cup-shaped, sepals 5, distinct, lanceolate to broadly ovate or suborbicular, 2–7 mm long, both surfaces densely brown to reddish brown tomentose, apex obtuse, acute, or acuminate. Corolla of 5 petals, white to cream, 13–23 mm long. Stamens 5, alternate with the petals, distinct; filaments 5–9 mm long, those of pistillate flowers, when present, 3.5–4.5 mm long; fertile anthers 3–4 mm long, those of pistillate flowers, when present, sterile, ca. 1.5 mm long. Ovary superior, 2-carpellate, 2–3-celled, on a short gynophore, placentation parietal; ovules numerous, in 2 rows per placenta; style 1; stigma capitate.

Fruit: Capsules ovoid to broadly ovoid; ± compressed; if so; then often oblong–ovoid; 20–35 mm long; densely brown to reddish brown tomentose; becoming sparsely so at maturity; apex rounded to obtuse; the usually persistent style ca. 3–4 mm long; the valves with woody exocarp 2–5 mm thick; with a median ridge or furrow; the surface strongly rugose to deeply rugose–tuberculate or sulcate; the troughs between the convolutions narrow; sometimes surface merely rugulose–roughened; seed mass filling the capsules volume. Seeds ca. 30–50; black to brown or reddish black; irregularly angled and compressed or subreniform; 4–8 mm long.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Dry to wet forest and subalpine forest.

Elevation Range: 180–2,200 m.