Flora of the Hawaiian Islands
Dicotyledon Literature for Miconia calvescens
HEAR website (accessed 3/4/11); Lorence & Wagner, 2020.
   Melastomataceae -- The Melastoma Family Bibliography
      Miconia calvescens
General Information
DistributionTropical America, native from Mexico to South America. Naturalized and highly invasive on many Pacific islands including French Polynesia.In the Hawaiian Islands, naturalized on Kaua`i, O`ahu, Maui, Hawai`i.
















Habit
Tree, 4‒8(‒16) m tall; young branchlets, inflorescences; bracts (externally), and hypanthia moderately, but rather deciduously stellate puberulent; young branchlets quadrisulcate, but terete with age, with a faint interpetiolar line at the nodes.
Leaves
Leaves petiolate; blade oblong-elliptic, 17‒30(‒40) cm long, 7‒15(‒25) cm wide, shortly blunt-acuminate at the apex, obtuse to rounded or occasionally subcordate at the base, chartaceous, margin obscurely undulate-serrulate, 3-veined (excluding the tenuous intra-marginal vein), inter-secondary veins prominent and parallel, minor venation laxly reticulate abaxially; petiole 2‒6 cm long.
Flowers
Inflorescences terminal, panicles 20‒30(‒50) cm long, multiflorous, with paired primary branches. Flowers 5-merous and sessile, bracteoles oblong, 2‒3 mm long and caducous; hypanthium 2‒2.7 mm long; calyx tube 0.6‒0.7 mm long, broadly triangular interior lobes 0.1‒0.3 mm long, adnate external teeth not projecting; petals white and glabrous, but sometimes sparsely gland-edged, (2.3‒)2.8‒3.1 mm long, (1‒)1.4‒1.9 mm wide, oblong-obovate; stamens slightly dimorphic, filaments (2.6‒)3.8‒4.2 mm long, glabrous or very sparsely glandular, thecae (1.9‒)3‒3.1 mm long, oblong-subulate, 1-pored; connective not or slightly (to 0.4 mm) prolonged, bilobulate adaxially and tuberculate abaxially, usually beset with a few glands; gynoecium with style glabrous or sparsely glandular, 5‒7 mm long, stigma subpeltate, ovary 3-locular and ½‒⅔ inferior, apex granulose or sparsely glandular.
Fruit
Fruit subglobose, ca. 3 mm in diameter, crowned by persistent calyx, blue-black when ripe.
Seeds
Seeds multiple, irregularly ovoid-ellipsoid, angulose, ca. 0.5 mm long, 0.4 mm wide, testa shiny brown, rugulose.
Contributor
David Lorence