命脉柯 mi mai ke

Quercus fordiana Hemsley, Hooker’s Icon. Pl. 27: t. 2664. 1901; Synaedrys fordiana (Hemsley) Koidzumi.

Trees usually less than 10 m tall; branchlets, leaf blades abaxially, and inflorescences rachis tawny pilose and with stellate hairs. Petiole 1-3 cm; leaf blade oblong to obovate-elliptic, 10-25 × 3-9 cm, thickly papery, concolorous, base cuneate and sometimes asymmetric, margin at least near apex remotely dentate, apex acute, caudate, or rarely acuminate; secondary veins (15-)20-28 on each side of midvein, basal ones fusing near margin, apical ones ending in teeth; tertiary veins abaxially slender, evident, subparallel. Inflorescences usually androgynous, 3-10 cm; male flower on distal 1/2. Female inflorescence cupules fewer than 10, in clusters of ca. 3 or sometimes solitary. Infructescence rachis ca. 5 mm thick. Cupule cupular, 2-3 × 2.5-3.5 cm, enclosing 2/3-3/4 of nut, wall ca. 1 mm thick; bracts triangular to rhomboid, center and margin ridged, tawny puberulent and scurfy or rarely glabrescent. Nut turbinate, ca. 2 × 3 cm, hairy, apex rounded or flat, wall 4-10 mm thick; scar covering more than 1/2 of nut, convex. Fl. May-Sep, fr. Aug-Oct of following year.

Broad-leaved evergreen forests, frequent in moist sites; 700-1500 m. SW Guizhou, S Yunnan [Vietnam]