Cliffortia nivenioides Fellingham

A compact small shrub to 600 mm tall with long emerging procumbent branches spreading over 750 mm, monoecious but apparently of one or the other sex at any given time, female flowers totally hidden in axils of upper leaves. Branches reddish brown, glabrous, older parts with persistent vaginas of fallen leaves with or without internodes in between, axils of some containing either short shoots or long shoots; internodes about 12 mm long. Leaves unifoliolate, unifacial, bilaterally flattened, in transverse section elliptic and anatomically centric, closely arranged on the short shoot in a flat slightly elongated fan; vagina 4-5 mm long, dorsally whitish and with three obscure parallel veins close together, laterally green; stipules, 3-4 mm long, subulate, glabrous, green, proximal edge straight, thick and flat, distal edge curved, membranous and whitish tinged with purple; lamina sessile, glabrous, glaucous green, red-tipped, smooth, drying sulcate, 3.0-33.0 x 1.0-2.0 mm, linear, straight to slightly falcate, base with two colourless cushions at joint to vagina, dorsally with a central nerve the length of leaf and two shorter parallel lateral nerves, ventrally from base upwards channelled for a third to half of its length forming a partial sheath to leaf above, apically tapering to an acute, somewhat dorsiventrally flattened point. Male flowers: bracteoles lanceolate-acuminate, 0.5-0.6 mm long, green, glabrous; pedicel and receptacle 1.0 mm long, glabrous; sepals 3, 7.0-8.0 x 2.0-2.5 mm, linear-lanceolate, leathery, the young lime green with occasional irregular longitudinal maroon lines, turning pink then maroon and eventually brown; stamens (13-)16(-20), filaments 6.5 mm long, filiform, maroon, glabrous; anthers 1.2 mm long, pink to maroon. Female flowers: bracteoles 0.4-0.5 mm long, similar to male bracteoles; pedicel absent or up to 0.4 mm long, thick and fleshy; sepals 3, 2.5-3.0 x 1.0-1.2 mm, lanceolate, dorsally concave, persisting in fruit; ovary narrowly elliptic in outline. 2.0-2.5 x 0.9-1.0 mm, longitudinally faintly ridged, glabrous; style solitary, 0.3-0.5 mm long; stigma short, broad, flat, maroon, margins long fimbriate. Fruit 4.5-5.5 x 1.9-2.0 mm, ellipsoid, apex truncate, base narrowed, resembling a pedicel, longitudinally faintly ridged, green with a tinge of red.