Distribution

Widespread and variable over the Pacific Islands from the Solomon and Caroline Islands to the Australs and Henderson Islands and north to the Hawaiian Islands. In the Hawaiian Islands, indigenous to Ni`ihau, Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Kaho`olawe, Hawai`i.

Habit

Twining lianas, scandent shrubs, or small erect shrubs.

Leaves

Leaves ternate, sometimes opposite, often both types on the same stem, upper surface glossy, lower surface paler, fragrant after a time when crushed, lanceolate or ovate to linear lanceolate, elliptic, or suborbicular, 0.7-6(-9) cm long, (0.5-)0.8-3.5(-4.3) cm wide, glabrous, margins entire, often revolute, apex acuminate to rounded, rarely retuse, base cuneate to rounded, petioles 0.3-1 cm long.

Flowers

Flowers (2)3-5 in axillary, umbellate cymes, peduncles 1-1.5 cm long, pedicels 0.3-0.8 cm long; calyx lobes ovate, partly folded, somewhat saccate toward base, 0.9-1.5 mm long, margins scarious and puberulent; corolla greenish to yellowish white, the tube expanding toward apex, 4-5 mm long, the lobes ca. 1.5-2 mm long.

Fruit

Drupes ovoid, often moniliform, consisting of 2-3(4), 1-seeded joints.

Seeds

Seeds 1 per carpel or joint, ovoid, furrowed on the ventral side.

Chromosomes

2n = ca. 36 39*.