General Information |
Distribution | Tropical 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.
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Habit
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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.
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Leaves
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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.
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Flowers
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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.
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Fruit
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Fruit subglobose, ca. 3 mm in diameter, crowned by persistent calyx, blue-black when ripe.
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Seeds
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Seeds multiple, irregularly ovoid-ellipsoid, angulose, ca. 0.5 mm long, 0.4 mm wide, testa shiny brown, rugulose.
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Contributor
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David Lorence
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