Home
Shrub or small tree, mostly terrestrial, sometimes epiphytic on trees while parasitizing other epiphytes, to 10 m high or more. Branches more or less terete. Leaves in pairs, shiny, leathery; petiole about 1 cm long, distinct; blade broadly lanceolate to ovate, to 8 x 4 cm, apex slightly attenuate, margin somewhat revolute below. Inflorescence solitary in leaf axils and terminating branch, a raceme of stalked triads (sometimes also 2-4 monads and single, terminal flower); each triad with sessile median flower, and green, foliaceous bracts and bracteoles. Flowers commonly golden yellow (rarely white, especially in central Colombia); petals mostly 0.8-2.5 cm long; stamens epipetalous, of two or more lengths, anthers versatile, dorsifixed; style straight, stigma scarcely differentiated. Fruit a dull orange berry lacking viscin, spherical, about 1 cm in diam.; mature seed with white endosperm which has radiating flanges, embryo dicotylous, narrow, 0.2 cm long, lacking a haustorial disk; germination epigeous.
