Shrubs. Stems erect; branches spreading, without silvery scales (sometimes hairy). Leaves deciduous; blade (not glaucous), oblong to oblanceolate or obovate, membranous, margins spinulose-serrulate, plane, surfaces glabrous, often unicellular-hairy on major veins abaxially; venation reticulodromous. Inflorescences axillary, fascicled or solitary racemes, 8-25-flowered, (produced on previous year´s wood); (bracteoles 2, distal). Flowers: sepals 5, connate basally, lanceolate or ovate; petals 5, connate basally nearly their entire lengths, white to pale pink, corolla cylindric, lobes much shorter than tube; stamens 8(-10), included; filaments ± straight, flattened, glabrous, without spurs; anthers with 2 or 4 awns proximal to anther-filament junction, dehiscent by terminal pores; pistil 5-carpellate; ovary pseudo 10-locular; stigma 5-lobed, capitate. Fruits capsular, depressed-globose, dry. Seeds 5-10, oblanceoloid or wedge- or crescent-shaped, flattened or not; testa smooth, shiny, reticulate. x = 11.

Although Eubotrys sometimes is included in Leucothoe, morphological and molecular work (K. Waselkov and W. S. Judd 2008; K. A. Kron et al. 1999, 2002) indicated that it is actually a sister lineage to Chamaedaphne, rather than to Leucothoe in the narrow sense. Notably, the pedicel bracts are located close to the pedicel apex in Eubotrys, while the bracts are near the base of the pedicel in Leucothoe. The development of the inflorescences on twigs of the current year in autumn has apparently evolved in parallel within Eubotrys and Leucothoe in the narrow sense.

Fls 5-merous; cal campanulate to saucer-shaped, persistent, the lobes imbricate at base; cor tubular, constricted at the throat, the short, rounded lobes spreading or recurved; stamens included, much shorter than the cor-tube; filaments glabrous, flat, narrowly triangular; anthers oblong or obovoid, dorsifixed, the pollen-sacs separate in the distal half, awned, opening by a terminal pore; style slender; stigma truncate, fr depressed-globose, loculicidal; seeds not reticulate; deciduous shrubs with thin, alternate lvs and elongate racemes of white fls terminating the branches of the previous year, the bracts soon deciduous; each pedicel with 2 bracteoles just beneath the cal. 2, N. Amer.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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