狭叶山胡椒 xia ye shan hu jiao

Benzoin angustifolium (W. C. Cheng) Nakai.

Deciduous shrubs and small trees, 2-8 m tall. Young branchlets yellow-green, glabrous. Winter buds purple-brown, ovate; bud scales keeled, glabrous outside, sericeous-pubescent on dorsum, glabrous on inner surface. Leaves alternate; leaf blade elliptic-lanceolate, 6-14 × 1.5-3.5 cm, subleathery, pale and laxly pubescent along veins abaxially, green and glabrous adaxially, pinninerved, lateral veins 8-10 pairs, base cuneate, apex acuminate. Umbels 2 or 3, inserted at base of winter bud, male umbel 3- or 4-flowered, female umbel 2-7-flowered. Male flowers: pedicels 3-5 mm; tepals 6; fertile stamens 9. Female flowers: pedicels 3-6 mm; tepals 6; reduced stamens 9; ovary ovate, glabrous; style ca. 1 mm; stigma capitate. Fruits globose, ca. 8 mm in diam., black at maturity; stipes 0.5-1.5 cm, puberulent or glabrous; hypocarpium ca. 2 mm in diam. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. Sep-Oct.

Thickets or sparse forests on mountain slopes. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Henan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Zhejiang [Korea].

The leaves are processed for their aromatic oil. The seed oil is used for making soap and machine oil.