卵叶桂 luan ye gui

Cinnamomum brevipedunculatum C. E. Chang; C. ovatum C. K. Allen (1939), not Lukmanoff (1889).

Small- to medium-sized trees, 3-22 m tall, ca. 50 cm d.b.h. Bark brown. Branchlets gray-brown or blackish brown, terete, glabrous, resin-scented, slightly compressed, angled especially when young, gray-brown tomentose when young. Leaves opposite; petiole (0.8-)1-2 cm, complanate, slightly sulcate adaxially, glabrous; leaf blade greenish and opaque abaxially, green and shiny adaxially, ovate, broadly ovate, or elliptic, (3.5-)4-7(-8) × (2.2-)2.5-4(-6) cm, leathery or thickly leathery, glabrous on both surfaces or sparsely puberulent initially but soon glabrate abaxially, triplinerved, midrib and basal lateral veins elevated on both surfaces, basal lateral veins arising at or up to 5(-7) mm above leaf base, arcuate, evanescent below leaf apex, with a few inconspicuous additional veins outside, sometimes also with additional delicate short veins from leaf base, transverse veins ± visible on both surfaces, veinlets reticulate and inconspicuous on both surfaces, base broadly cuneate or obtuse to subrounded, apex obtuse or acute. Inflorescence axillary on current year branchlets, subumbellate, 3-6(-8.5) cm, 3-7(-11)-flowered; peduncle 2-4 cm, sparsely appressed pubescent. Flowers unknown. Mature fruit ovoid, ca. 2 × 1.4 cm, cream-yellow; stalk ca. 5 mm, subterete; perianth cup in fruit greenish to green-blue, shallowly cupuliform, ca. 1 cm, apex truncate, ca. 1.5 cm wide.

● Forests by streams; below 1700 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Taiwan, Yunnan.