| General Information |
| Distribution | Occurs from the New Hebrides, northern Queensland, Australia, and Madagascar to the Society Islands, Pitcairn, Micronesia, and Hawai`i.In the Hawaiian Islands,
indigenous to
Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i.
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Habit
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Large glabrous shrubs or trees up to 10 m tall, loosely branched; branchlets thick, terminal "nodes" enlarged (perhaps best called aggregate nodes), probably really a number of nodes and internodes condensed and bearing pseudowhorls of leaves and pseudoterminal cymes, as well as new branchlets, the "terminal" or next proximal internode elongate, 3-15 cm long, and usually straight and weakly quadrangular in cross section, 3-10 mm in diameter.
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Leaves
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Leaves nearly always in pseudowhorls of 3-8 or opposite, thick and chartaceous to subcoriaceous, extremely variable in size and shape, ovate elliptic to broadly elliptic, obovate, or sometimes broadly spatulate, 5-35 cm long, 5-15 cm wide, primary lateral veins 8-10(-12) pairs, not very prominent, on most specimens forking and anastomosing toward margins, tertiary and higher order venation obscure, apex subacute or obtuse, rarely somewhat acuminate, base usually more or less cuneately narrowed or contracted to a short petiole 0.5-2(-3) cm long.
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Flowers
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Flowers unisexual, rarely appearing perfect, strongly fragrant, in pseudoterminal, glabrous to minutely puberulent cymes, these 1-5(6) at an aggregate node, occasionally later becoming apparently axillary by vigorous growth of a new branchlet, each one 6-15 cm long at anthesis, enlarging up to twice as long and becoming diffuse in fruit, usually long pedunculate and branching once or twice or more, with aggregate nodes forming an umbellate pattern, sometimes irregularly so, hemispherical to globose in outline, rays 6-10, ultimate umbellules at times somewhat irregular, scale like bractlets at articulations caducous or absent, often 1 bractlet present part way up the pedicel; receptacle noticeably contracted into pedicel; perianth campanulate at anthesis, 4-5 lobed, limb rounded distally, lobes ovate, spreading to somewhat recurved, margins thick, usually revolute, pistillate perianth somewhat smaller than staminate; staminate flowers with stamens 6-10, slightly to well exserted, anthers orbicular, pistillode included or very slightly exserted, capitate to somewhat lobed, processes scarcely evident, apex recurved; pistillate flowers with stigma slightly to strongly exserted, capitate, apically penicillate or covered by hair like, simple to slightly branched processes, giving a kâhili like appearance, staminodes usually not exserted.
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Fruit
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Anthocarps prismatic, 3-7 cm long, becoming hard, angles very glutinous, the distal 1/2-1/3 tapering to a sterile portion, forming a rostrum, lobes persistent, spreading and stellate, margins usually tightly revolute or merely thickened, with a triangular portion usually present arising within the margin of the lobe and extending slightly beyond it.
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Chromosomes
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2n = ca. 112.
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Notes
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The only collection of this species from the Marquesas Islands is sterile and tentatively assigned to this species.
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Contributor
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Warren Wagner
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