Hawaiian Islands.In the Hawaiian Islands,
endemic to
Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i.
Habitat
Dry to mesic forests
Elevation
250-1000 m
Habit
Gynodioecious shrub or tree up to 13 m tall; bark grey, longitudinally fissured, very corky bark developing with age; exuding white latex upon damage; young branches with brown indument.
Leaves
Leaves alternate, exstipulate, simple,
entire, elliptic to obovate, flat, longitudinally rolled, wavy or even distally deflexed, 2.5–12.0 × 1.5–5.2 cm; blade indument variable, usually greyish tomentulose on both surfaces, often ferruginous or mixed, glabrescent above, persistent or partly glabrescent below except for the midvein; base cuneate to round; apex acute to round, occasionally retuse; leaf venation
brochidodromous, secondaries many, straight; tertiary veins parallel with secondaries, sometimes admedial, almost perpendicular to the midvein, laxly reticulate in the distal part; petiole 7–35 mm long, somewhat glabrescent.
Flowers
Flowers bisexual or female, 5-merous, 1–5 in axillary fascicles; pedicel
1–9(–10) mm long, tomentulose with brown indument; sepals 2.5–5.0 mm long, with round to acute apex, indumentum outside of the same kind as the pedicel, glabrous inside, sometimes with some trichomes at apex and along the margin;
corolla 2.5–6.0 mm long, dome-shaped, yellowish or cream, rarely greenish, glabrous; corolla tube and lobes of about equal length, lobes triangular to ovate; stamens inserted in the middle of the corolla tube or sometimes just below tube orifice, shorter than the corolla, glabrous; anthers 1.0–1.1 mm long; staminodes 1.2–2.0 mm long, inserted in lobe sinuses, lanceolate to triangular in bisexual flowers, fan-shaped or
broadly obovate in female flowers, glabrous; gynoecium usually with 5 locules, flask-shaped to conical, usually vermilion hirsute around the base; style included within the corolla;
apex with minute stigmatic areas.
Fruit
Fruit yellow, ovoid to globose, 12–33 × 9–26 mm, apex round to acuminate, crowned by a 0.5–4.0 mm long remnant style, young fruit often pubescent, glabrescent, 1–5-seeded or with all five ovules aborted.
Seeds
Seeds with brown, shiny to dull testa, 11–25 × 13–16 mm, laterally compressed, boat-shaped; seed scar ± 90% of the seed
length, covering the adaxial surface; cotyledons foliaceous, white, with an exserted radicle below the commissure; endosperm present.
