Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees 6–15 m tall, bark grayish brown, smooth, glabrous throughout.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades narrowly lanceolate, 10–23 cm long, 2.5–5 cm wide. Apex long-acuminate. Base cuneate. Blades thin, coriaceous, somewhat pendent. Margins entire. Principal lateral veins 10–20 pairs, 5–15 mm apart, submarginal vein irregular. Petioles 0–.5–1 cm long. Stipules vestigial or absent.

Flowers: Flowers in terminal, once branched cymes ca. 2 cm long, peduncles 9.7–1.5 cm long, bracts 0.8–1 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic. Hypanthium funnelform, 7–10 mm long, narrowing into a short pseudostipe 3–4 mm long. Calyx of 4 sepals, fleshy, unequal, one pair 6–g mm long, the other pur 4–6 mm long, glabrous or sparsely puberulent, persistent. Corolla of 4 petals, white to greenish white, orbicular to ovate–orbicular, concave, 12–20 mm long, caducous. Stamens ca.200 ; filaments creamy white, 10–50 mm long.

Fruit: Berries whitish yellow to pinkish yellow; subglobose; 2–4 cm long; pericarp fleshy; 10–15 mm thick. Seeds usually 1; subglobose; 2– 2.5 cm in diameter; seed coat closely coherent to cotyledons.

Ploidy: 2n = 28; 33; ca. 42; 44; 46; ca. 54; 66

Habitat: Low elevation mesic to wet sites; primarily valleys and occasionally disturbed mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 15–500 (–1220) m.