| General Information |
| Distribution | Hawaiian Islands.In the Hawaiian Islands,
endemic to
Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i.
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| Habitat | Mesic to wet forests |
| Elevation | 300-1830 m
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Habit
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Polygamodioecious shrub or small slender tree 2–6(–8) m tall; branches when fresh red to green, usually glabrous or glabrate, sometimes strigulose or villous-tomentose with light brown hairs 0.1–0.4 mm long.
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Leaves
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Leaves spirally arranged, shiny, dark green except veins and petioles usually pink, red, or reddish orange; blade chartaceous, ovate, elliptic, or oblong-elliptic, rarely obovate or broadly elliptic (Maui), 7–19 cm long, 2.5–9.5 cm wide [length:width 1.8–2.7:1], adaxially relatively smooth,
glabrous, abaxially somewhat paler and glabrate to moderately villosulous (Maui), especially along veins and on young leaves, the hairs yellowish brown, 0.4–0.8 mm long, the secondary veins 8–11 on each side, usually with hair tufts in secondary and tertiary
vein axils, the tertiary and quaternary veins usually not prominulous below, apex long to short-acuminate or sometimes rounded or obtuse (Maui), base cuneate to obtuse
or rounded, margin serrate, the teeth 0.3–1 mm long, tips indurated; petiole 1.5–5 cm long, sparsely to moderately pale brown villosulous-hirsute or glabrate; stipules linear-oblong, 1–1.5 mm long, glabrous or puberulent, deciduous.
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Flowers
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Inflorescences of both sexes axillary or occasionally infrafoliar, paniculate cymes, pyramidal, with two to three (rarely to four on Kaua‘i) degrees of branching, the peduncle (0.5–) 1–4 cm, the staminate 4–7(–12) cm long, 2–6 cm wide, the pistillate 3–5 cm long, 2–3 cm wide; axes glabrate to densely brown villosulous, the hairs 0.1–0.4 mm long, bracts glabrous, triangular-subulate, those on primary branches 0.4–1.0 mm long, those on secondary branches 0.5–1.0 mm long, pedicels with 1–3 bracts 0.5–0.8 mm long; flowers on glabrous or puberulent, articulate pedicels 1–3.5 mm long. Staminate flowers with sepals
and petals 5, calyx greenish orange, sometimes red-margined, sepals deltate, 0.5–0.7 mm long, margins entire, petals similar in color and shape to sepals but thinner, 0.6–0.8
mm long, 1–1.2 mm wide, margins
ciliate; stamens with filaments 1.5–1.9 mm long, anthers transverse ellipsoid, 0.5–0.6 mm long, 0.6–0.7 mm wide; pistillode 0.5–0.7 mm. Pistillate flowers with sepals and petals 5, bracteolate, with calyx greenish orange to red, sepals deltate, 0.6–1.5 mm long, 0.5– 0.7 mm wide, petals similar in color and
shape but thinner, deltate, 0.6–1.1 mm long, margins ciliate; pistil ovoid, 1.0–1.5 mm long, stigma lobes 2, papillose; staminodes 5, 0.3–0.4 mm long.
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Fruit
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Infructescence 5–10 cm long, 3.5–7 cm wide; fruit a depressed-globose berry (2–)4–6 mm in diameter, reddish-green, ripening bright red, or white and red-tinged, glabrous.
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Seeds
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Seeds (2–)4, triangular-globose, 1.3–1.5 mm long, with thin aril, the testa rugose-reticulate, or sometimes only with transverse wavy lines.
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Contributor
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Nancy Khan
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