Flora of North America species comparison

blade drying concolorous olive or tan, ovate, elliptic, or oblong, 8–17 × 3.5–7 cm, leathery, base cuneate, obtuse, or rounded, apex acuminate or obtuse, tip bluntly acute, surfaces glandular, glossy adaxially, glands small, often punctiform, numerous, sometimes more so abaxially.

opposite;

blade venation brochidodromous.

15–100-flowered, axillary, panicles of dichasia, 1–3 times compound;

axis 15–60 mm, lateral branches 5–20 mm, axis and branches compressed, glandular;

bracts and bracteoles caducous.

(1 or)2–100-flowered, terminal or axillary, dichasia, panicles, or racemes.

sessile at tips of lateral branches;

bud pyriform, 4–5 mm;

hypanthium obconic to narrowly campanulate, 3–5 mm;

calyx lobes caducous, leaving round crateriform scar at ovary summit, equal, 0.5 × 0.5 mm;

petals coherent, forming a calyptra, falling as a unit at anthesis;

stamens 50–100, 3–5 mm;

style 6–7 mm.

[3 or]4(or 5)-merous, sessile or pedicellate;

bud turbinate, clavate, or obovoid;

hypanthium forming a tube, prolonged well beyond summit of ovary, base often attenuate;

calyx lobes usually distinct and well developed, in opposing subequal to equal pairs, rarely calyptrate and circumscissile at anthesis;

petals white, distinct or coherent and calyptrate and falling as a unit at anthesis;

stamens 50–300[–500], borne in a ring surmounting hypanthium;

ovary 2(–4)-locular;

style often persistent in developing fruit;

ovules 2–90.

berries, red, purple, purple-black, yellow, or reddish, globose, ellipsoid, or subglobose, usually excavated apically;

calyx lobes persistent or caducous.

purple black, ellipsoid, 15–20 mm;

calyx tube reduced to persistent, apical ring, 1–2 mm diam. 2n = 22.

usually 1[or 2, rarely 3–5], reniform to subglobose;

seed coat membranous;

embryo subglobose to reniform;

cotyledons distinct, plano-convex, thick.

= 11.