Small trees, to 3 m or shrubs, the branchlets terete, slender, 0.1-0.5 cm wide, puberulent, the nodes well spaced. Leaves ovate oblong, trapeziform oblong, often falcate and inequilateral, 3-11 cm long, 1-4 cm wide, deltoid to acute at the apex, acuminate, the acumen vague or to 1.5 cm long, acute, rounded, obtuse or occasionally truncate at the base, the costa prominulous above and beneath, the lateral veins 8-10, strongly arcuate, papyraceous, glabrescent or pubescent above, the hairs white, strigose, villose beneath, especially on the veins; petioles to 0.3 cm long, the blades sometimes sessile; stipules ovate or deltoid, ca. 6 mm long, the awn subulate, as long as the body, the body sometimes much reduced and the awn then to 5 times longer. Inflorescences terminal, occasionally ap-pearing axillary as on reduced side branches, solitary, exceeding the terminal leaves, to 20 cm long, flagelliform, the peduncles 0.5-3.0 cm long, slender, to 0.1 cm wide, the flowers occasionally solitary or 3-4 in sessile or subsessile cymules, these 0.5-1.0 cm apart; bracteoles linear subulate, to 5 mm long. Flowers with the hypanthium rotund, ca. 1 mm long, truncate, villose, the calycine tube ca. 0.3 mm long, the teeth 4, unequal, triangular, ca. 0.7 mm long, obtuse to acute, with a minute gland in the sinuses; corolla white, the tube cylindrical, ca. 3 mm long, expanded at the apex, white villose on the outside and within, the lobes 4, oblong rotund, ca. 1.5 mm long, with papillae and hairs on upper surface; stamens 4, the anthers narrowly oblong, 1.0-1.3 mm long, the filaments slender, ca. 0.5 mm long, inserted near base of tube; style linear, 2.5-3.0 mm long, the stigmas 3-4, ca. 0.3 mm long. Fruits white, coccoid, rotund, to 0.5 cm in diam., fleshy, pubescent, the calycine lobes persistent, often radiating in starlike fashion.
Home