瓦山栲 wa shan zhui

Castanopsis chuniana W. P. Fang.

Trees 8-15 m tall; 1st-year branchlets and rachis of inflorescences yellowish brown to brownish villous. Petiole ca. 1 cm; leaf blade lanceolate, oblong, or sometimes oblanceolate, 10-18 × 2-5 cm or rarely shorter or wider, papery, 1st-year leaf blades at least along veins abaxially villous and with layers of reddish brown to yellowish brown scalelike trichomes, base broadly cuneate to acute and oblique, margin apically with 2-5 shallow teeth or entire, apex long acuminate to mucronate; midvein adaxially impressed; secondary veins 13-17 on each side of midvein, slightly impressed to raised. Female inflorescences in clusters on apical part of branchlet of previous year; flowers 2 or 3 per cupule. Cupule subglobose, ca. 3 cm in diam., outside and bracts brown villous and with small, lamellate, waxy scalelike trichomes, wall 1-1.5 mm thick; bracts spinelike, to 5 mm, several connate into bundles from middle or apical part, sometimes cristate. Nuts 1 or 2(or 3) per cupule, broadly conical, 1.5-1.8 × 1.4-1.8 cm, pubescent; scar basal, ca. 1 cm in diam. Fl. Apr-May, fr. autumn to early winter of following year.

Mixed and broad-leaved evergreen forests; 1500-2500 m. Guizhou, Hubei, SW Sichuan, Yunnan [Laos, NE Thailand, Vietnam]