The World Flora Online

Tree to about 10 m tall; branchlets obtusely trigonal, only at the growing apex slightly appressed sericeous-puberulent, soon glabrous, brownish green, striate and lenticellate-tuberculate, the internodes 1-3 cm long, the terminal buds appressed-sericeous. Stipules geminate or bigeminate, triangular-subulate, rather thick, only 1.5-3.0 mm long. Leaves ternate, usually simple, but also compound, often both kinds to be found in one tree. Simple leaves with short petiole, 6-18 mm long, robust, sparsely puberulous when young, soon glabrous, sulcate above with a pair of dentiform, acute, stipels 0.5-2.0 mm long; blade 6-16 cm long, 3.5-10.0 cm wide, thick and rigidly coriaceous, ovate, oblong-ovate, rounded or very slightly attenuate at the apex, obtuse or shortly, obtusely cuneate at the base, coarsely serrate-crenate and slightly revolute, the teeth 6-10 mm apart, abruptly callose-mucronulate; deep green, when dry yellowish above, nitid, glabrous except for the impressed, more or less pubescent costa, the secondary nerves very much depressed, surface undulating, minor veins invisible; below pale and dull, when dry ochraceous or brownish apparently glabrous but copiously covered with minute (0.03-0.05 mm), subappressed, sericeous hairs, the costa very prominent and somewhat carinate, 9-11 pairs of prominent, secondary veins, 6-12 mm apart, ascending with a divergence angle 40°-50°, ending with a tooth at the margin, the transverse tertiary nerves anastomosing with the minor veins into a slightly prominulous, very conspicuous reticulum. Compound leaves 1-3-imparipinnate (three to seven leaflets); axis 6.5-18.0 cm long, robust, striolate above, slightly bicostate and sulcate, with two pairs of slightly arcuate-corniculate stipels 1.5-2.5 mm long near the insertion of the leaflets; petiole 2.5-7.5 cm long; interjuga 4-5 cm long; leaflets petiolulate, the medial larger than the laterals, the lateral petiolules stout, 5-15 mm long, the medial 12-35 mm long, stipellate, the blades similar to those of the simple leaves, tending to be more oblong and attenuate, subacute, in the seedling plants. Female cymose panicles solitary and axillary at the end of branchlets, 10-20 cm long, 6-8 cm broad, the peduncle strongly striate-sulcate and compressed, almost ancipital, 3-7 cm long, 4-5 mm wide, subglabrous, with very sparse, minute, sericeous hairs, the branchlets similar, also flattened, angular and scarcely puberulous, the ultimate branchlets or peduncles short, rigid, puberulous, 1-12 mm long, the medial longer than laterals, the female flowers sessile or subsessile, glomerate, with a thick and short (0.5 mm) inconspicuous pedicel. Bracts subulate, rather thick, 1.5-3.0 mm long. Female flowers usually hexamerous, but also heptamerous and pentamerous, not always with regular floral structure (e g, 7S+12E + 6C); calyx thick, pale green, 5-7 mm long, continuing at the base with the thick pedicel or receptacle, expanded 14-18 mm in diameter, the lobes oblong-ovate or lanceolate-oblong, 3.5-6.5 mm long 2-3 mm wide, very sparsely minute-pilose outside, minutely and densely tomentose at the margins and near the margins inside, more or less appressed sericeous inside; staminodia 12, the filaments 1.6-2.5 mm long, thickened near the base, glabrous or a few hairs at the base, the shorter alternating with the longer opposite the sepals, the anthers 0.9-1.0 mm long, oblong, acute, presumably sterile; carpels six (or five, seven) ovoid, elongate and gradually tapering into a long style, the ovary ovoid-oblong, about 2.5 mm long, biovulate, densely hispid, with long (1.5 mm), rigid, acute, trichomes, the continuing style about 7 mm long, hispid at the base, curved at the apex, papillose along the ventral suture. Follicles usually all maturing, bispermous, ovoid-oblong 8-11 mm long 3.5 mm broad, 5-6 mm long-apiculate, densely tomentose and hispid; endocarp hard, corneous, fusiform or ovoid elongate, long-attenuate and extremely pointed at the apex, 9-10 mm long, about 3 mm thick, when dry and open, navicular, laterally narrowing to an acute end. Seeds oblong ellipsoid, obtuse, reddish brown, 3.5-3.8 × 1.6-2.0 mm. Disc thick, shortly and densely white-tomentose.

Source: [
• 2
]. 

(Fig 54, p 128.) In Andean forests and scrub zone of the Central Andes between parallels 2 and 4, between 2800 and 3700 m elevation in Ecuador.

Source: [
• 2
].