The World Flora Online

Tree to about 20 m tall. Sharply triquetrous, terminal leafy branchlets, the internodes 1.5-10.0 cm long, greenish ferrugineous, minutely crisp-tomentose, becoming glabrescent and lenticellate-tuberculate with time. Buds and young leaves densely crisp-tomentose with abundant short, rather thick and curled hairs. Stipules on the branchlets geminate, subtriangular-linear about 1 mm long. Leaves simple, ternate, rarely opposite on single nodes. Petiole robust, more or less tomentose, above flat or sulcate, below rounded or angular, slightly thickened and vaginate at the base, 0.8-2.8 mm long. Blade coriaceous, rather thick and rigid, sublanceolate-elliptic, oblong, attenuate and acute or subacute at the apex, narrowed and cuneate at the base, shortly bicrenate-serrate, (the teeth 0-1 mm high); 8-18 cm long, 2.7-5.5 cm wide (to 30 × 12 cm); slightly rugose above, green, subnitid, pubescent, when juvenile later glabrous except for the tomentellous costa, the secondary nerves spreading-ascending, filiform, impressed, the smaller veins at the bottom of the rugosities almost obsolete; below ochraceous-green or greenish ferrugineous, minutely tomentulose with dense, flexuous, crisp, short trichomes, the costa very prominent and tomentose, the prominent secondary nerves patulous-ascendant with a divergence angle of 50°-60°, parallel, 18-24 on each side, 3-8 mm apart, the transverse tertiary veins also prominent, reticulate the venular reticulum of fourth and fifth degree with minute and deep alveolae. Male inflorescence about 15 cm long, cymose-peniculate, the peduncle about 6 cm long, ancipital, minutely and densely crisp-tomentose, the branches compressed, striate, tomentose, subflexuouse, the bracts deciduous, the uppermost smaller, linear, tomentose, 2-1 mm long. Pedicels 1.5-3.0 mm long, densely crisp-tomentose. Buds globose-subquadrangular, densely tomentose, 2.0-2.5 mm broad. Flowers normally tetramerous; calyx 2.5 mm high, the four lobes triangular, acute, 1.51.8 mm long, minutely tomentose outside and along the margins, sparsely pilose inside; stamens four, the filaments subulate, apically incurved, pilose toward the base, about 3 mm long; anthers ellipsoid, 1 mm long; carpels four, rudimentary, the sterile biovulate, ovary very hirsute, 0.3 mm long, the style glabrous, 0.6 mm long. Female inflorescence similar to the male, bracts 3-4 mm long, lanceolate or oblong, deciduous, the uppermost subulate, 2-1 mm long, the pedicels 5-1 mm long, tomentose; flowers tetramerous, rarely pentamerous; buds globose, slightly angulate, about 2.5 mm in diam; calyx expanded 6-7 mm in diam, 2.6-3.0 mm high, the four lobes ovate-triangular, 2.0-2.5 mm long, 1.2-2.0 mm wide, minutely and dilutely or subdensely tomentose outside and at the margins, minutely pilose inside; staminodia eight, the filaments 0.6-0.8 mm long, pilose only near the base, the anthers about 0.5 mm long. Carpels four, only one or two developing to maturity; the biovulate, fertile ovary ovoid-oblong, densely long-hirsute, 1.5-2.0 mm long. Follicles 9-11 mm long, ovoid-elliptical, oblong, rather obtuse or subacute, subferrugineous-tomentose; endocarp hard, rugose, subobtuse, 7.0-8.5 mm long, 3-4 mm wide, when dry and open navicular; the seeds one or two in each, oblong-ellipsoid, reddish brown, shining, about 3.0 × 1.5 mm.

Source: [
• 2
]. 

(Fig 62, p. 150.) Andean forests of the eastern Cordillera in Cundinamarca, Colombia, and Sierra Nevada de Merida in Venezuela, between 2400 and 3000 m alt.

Source: [
• 2
].