Shrubs or trees, to 9 m tall. Leaves 15-40 cm, (3 or)5-13(or 15)-foliolate; leaflet blades elliptic to ovate or sometimes lanceolate, oblanceolate, or obovate, 4.5-17 × 2-8 cm, abaxially rarely slightly glaucous and not papillate, secondary veins 9-17 on each side of midvein, reticulate veinlets abaxially ± inconspicuous and ± loose, base in lateral leaflets obtuse to narrowly cuneate or sometimes rounded to cuneate or rarely attenuate, margin entire or irregularly crenulate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences 2.5-18 cm. Flowers (4 or)5-merous. Sepals 0.5-1.2 mm. Petals green, yellow, or white but drying brown to whitish, 3-5 mm, outside glabrous or with sparse short trichomes, inside nearly glabrous to villous. Ovary glabrous or with sparse trichomes; ovules 2 per carpel, collateral or subcollateral. Fruit (including abortive carpels, if any) usually 5-carpelled; follicles subglobose, 3.5-6 mm, glabrous or sometimes with sparse trichomes, apex not beaked; endocarp glabrous. Seeds 1 per follicle but paired with an abortive seed, ovoid or sometimes ellipsoid or subglobose, 3.5-5.5 mm, attached in dehisced follicle to axile strip of pergamentaceous pericarp tissue; seed coat with thick inner layer of dense black sclerenchyma and spongy outer layer bounded externally by a shiny black pellicle. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. Aug-Nov.
Well-drained forests, thickets, and open places; at elevations from 120-3,000 metres.
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