| General Information |
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| Distribution | A genus of 5 very closely related species endemic to Hawai`i.
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Habit
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Erect to spreading or climbing shrubs or small trees with watery-milky or milky sap; branches usually arcuate, pubescent with erect or appressed, white or gray hairs.
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Leaves
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Leaves alternate, thin and membranous to coriaceous, lanceolate, ovate to elliptic, palmately 3-nerved from base, upper surface glabrous or pubescent, the hairs spreading to appressed, with disciform cystoliths, lower surface pubescent with spreading to appressed or curved hairs, sometimes glabrous, margins entire, sometimes coarsely dentate, apex long-acuminate to acute, base cuneate to subcordate, petiolate, stipules small, intrapetiolar.
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Flowers
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Flowers unisexual (and the plants dioecious), in axillary clusters; staminate flowers sessile or on pedicels 0.5-2.5 mm long, calyx lobes 4, boat-shaped, 2-6 mm long, coherent in bud, separating at anthesis, pilose, the hairs appressed to spreading, sometimes uncinate, staminal filaments folded elastically in bud, strap-shaped, 2-5 mm long, anthers reniform, dithecal, pollen white; pistillate flowers sessile or on pedicels up to 2 mm long, sometimes subtended by a bract, calyx lobes connate into a pubescent or glabrous perigynium, apex beaked, laciniate or 3-4-toothed, stigma 2-8 mm long, with stigmatic hairs all around or absent on 1 side.
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Fruit
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Achenes 1-3.5 mm long, enclosed in the accrescent, thin to fleshy, smooth or sharply angled calyx.
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Seeds
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Seed ellipsoid to ovoid, ± constricted in upper part.
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