华榛 hua zhen

Corylus chinensis var. macrocarpa Hu; C. colurna Linnaeus var. chinensis (Franchet) Burkill; C. papyracea Hickel.

Trees to 40 m tall; bark gray-brown, fissured. Branchlets purplish brown, slender, sparsely villous, stipitate glandular, glabrescent. Petiole 1-2.5 cm, densely villous, stipitate glandular; leaf blade ovate, ovate-elliptic, or obovate-elliptic, 8-18 × 6-12 cm, base obliquely cordate, margin irregularly and doubly serrate, apex mucronate or shortly caudate, abaxially bearded in axils of lateral veins, villous along veins, adaxially glabrous; lateral veins 7-11 on each side of midvein. Male inflorescences 4-6 in a cluster, cylindric, 1.5-2 cm; bracts rhombic-ovate, pubescent. Female inflorescences 2-6 in a cluster; bracts forming a tubular sheath, 2-6 cm, striate, pilose, stipitate glandular, much constricted above nut and deeply divided into linear lobes, usually forked at apex. Nut enclosed by bracts, ovoid-globose, 1-1.5 cm in diam., glabrous.

* Forests on moist mountain slopes; 1200-3500 m. Gansu, Guizhou, Hubei, Shaanxi, SW Sichuan, Xizang, NW Yunnan

This species is vulnerable because of its rarity.