Compilation
Sponia bracteolata

a shrub or tree 8–20 ft. high; young branches adpressed-puberulous; leaves alternate, stipulate; petiole 2–6 lin. long, puberulous; blade 1–5 in. long, 1/3–2 in. broad, varying from narrowly lanceolate to elongated ovate or oblong-ovate, acuminate, rounded to cordate at the base, often more or less oblique, three-nerved at the base, finely toothed, glabrous or thinly sprinkled with hairs above, nearly glabrous to finely adpressed-puberulous beneath; stipules 1–3 1/2 lin. long, lanceolate-subulate, silky-pubescent, deciduous; flowers in small dense axillary cymes or globose clusters 1/4– 3/4 in. in diam., which vary from shorter than to about twice as long as the petioles, unisexual or occasionally with both sexes on the same cyme, pubescent or puberulous; bracts 1/2–1 1/4 lin. long, ovate, acute or tapering to a long point, pubescent; pedicels 1/4–1 lin. long, jointed close under the flowers; flowers 5-partite, green; segments of the male flower 1 lin. long, deeply boat-shaped, obtuse, those of the female 2/3 lin. long, two of them concave, the other three flatter and broader, elliptic, very obtuse, in both sexes with membranous fringed margins to the inner three, the others ciliate, glabrous; stamens 5, with stout filaments, shortly tapering at the apex, shorter than the perianth-segments, glabrous, absent from the female flowers; ovary compressed, elliptic, glabrous, 1-celled, with 1 pendulous ovule, columnar and abortive in the male flowers, surrounded at the base in both sexes by a ring of hairs; styles 2, ascending or diverging, 1/2 lin. long, hairy; fruit fleshy, ellipsoid or subglobose, 1 1/2–2 lin. in diam., black when ripe, bearing the persistent remains of the styles. null