Home
Trees or shrubs, perennial, from tuberous taproot. Stems erect, divaricately branching, unarmed, internodes without glutinous bands, glabrate (short pubescent). Leaves petiolate; blade broadly lanceolate to obovate, thin, margins entire. Inflorescences in axils of leaves, compound cymose, loose, each flower subtended by 2-3 bracts. Flowers unisexual, (plants dioecious), chamogamous, narrow; staminate perianth 5-toothed, tubular to narrowly campanulate, limb not reflexed at maturity, stamens 5-10, exceeding perianth; pistillate perianth 5-toothed, tubular, closing over ovary, styles slender, barely exserted, stigmas tipped by fine hairs. Fruits bright orange-red, becoming weakly 10-ribbed upon drying, obovoid to globose, fleshy, glandless.
Dioecious trees and shrubs. Leaves opposite to irregularly approximate. In-florescences terminal, frequently at the tips of short lateral branches, corymbosely thyrsiform. Flowers small, immediately subtended by 1-3 minute bracteoles. Staminate flowers campanulate; stamens usually 6-8, unequal, widely exserted, the short tube of the filaments adnate to the stipe of the pistillode. Pistillate flowers tubular to tubular-carnpanulate, the limb of the perianth erect or spreading, the staminodes about as long as the ovary and with enlarged sterile anthers, the short tube of the filaments adnate to the stipe of the pistil. Anthocarps fleshy, eglandular, the limb of the perianth persistent and rather fleshy.
