Home
Leaves alternate or the upper ones subopposite or opposite, petiolate; lamina bright green to olive-green, concolorous or rather paler green below, shining above or with both surfaces dull, (4·5)5·2–9·5(11) × (1·6)2–5·1(6·5) cm., elliptic or oblong-elliptic to obovate or oblanceolate, acute to obtuse or rounded and shortly apiculate at the apex, with margin entire or ± deeply curved-dentate, cuneate or decurrent at the base, papyraceous to coriaceous, with (6)7–8(9) lateral nerves and densely reticulate venation more prominent below than above; petiole 1–4 mm. long, with entire margins; stipules absent.
Flowers (1–2)3–15 in axillary dichasial or subumbellate cymes, bisexual, 12–15 mm. in diam.; buds 3–4 mm. long, ovoid-conic; peduncle 1–9(15) mm. long; pedicels 5–30 mm. long, articulated in the lower 1/2; bracts 0·5–1·5 mm. long, oblong to triangular, with margin entire to red-brown-scarious and denticulate, persistent.
Shrubs, much branched, or shrublets with erect annual shoots from a woody ± creeping rootstock, 0·2–1 m. high (or higher and arborescent according to some collectors), sometimes forming colonies, without latex, glabrous; stems subterete or ± flattened, almost smooth or striate, green at first, becoming purple-brown.
Stamens 3, with filaments up to 3 mm. long, slender, ± flattened; anthers pale to orange-yellow, dehiscing by 2 oblique or almost vertical clefts not confluent at the apex.
Disk dark to pale or yellowish green, shortly cylindric, round the bases of stamens and ovary, with margin broad and flat or concave, shallowly and ± irregularly 5-lobed.
Sepals pale green with narrow whitish scarious entire or denticulate margin, 1–1·5 mm. long, unequal or sub-equal, ovate to oblong or semicircular, rounded, free.
Fruit orange, 3·5–4 × 1·8–3·2 cm., subglobose to pyriform or irregular, apiculate, sometimes ridged, smooth, 1–3-seeded.
Petals pale green to yellowish, 4–7 mm. long, oblong to triangular, rounded, entire, united with the disk at the base.
Ovary ovoid-3-gonous or 3-lobed, with style narrow, elongated; stigma 3-lobed; ovules 2 per loculus.
A shrub or creeper.
