红脉钓樟 hong mai diao zhang

Benzoin rubronervium (Gamble) Rehder.

Deciduous shrubs or trees, up to 5 m tall. Bark black-gray, lenticellate. Young branchlets gray-black or black-brown, smooth. Winter buds long corniform-conical, 5-7 × 2-3 mm, glabrous. Leaves alternate; petiole 5-10 mm, pubescent; leaf blade greenish abaxially, dark green adaxially, ovate, narrowly ovate, sometimes lanceolate, (4-)6-8(-13) × (2-)3-4(-5.5) cm, papery, sometimes subleathery, pubescent abaxially, along midrib laxly pubescent adaxially, triplinerved, usually lateral veins 3 or 4 pairs above middle of blade, veins and petiole red in autumn, base cuneate, apex acuminate. Umbels axillary, usually one inserted at both sides of leaf bud; peduncles ca. 2 mm; involucral bracts 8, persistent, 5-8 flowers included. Male flowers: pedicels 2-2.5 mm, densely white pubescent; perianth tube pubescent; tepals 6, yellow-green, elliptic, white pubescent inside, apex rounded, ca. 2.7 mm in outer whorl, ca. 2.2 mm in inner whorl; fertile stamens 9, equal in length, ca. 2.2 mm; filaments glabrous, 2-glandular near base in 3rd whorl; glands broadly reniform; reduced pistil less than 1 mm; ovary narrowly elliptic; style and stigma forming an obtuse mucro. Female flowers: pedicels 2-3.5 mm, pubescent; perianth tube densely white pubescent; tepals elliptic, same length as male flowers, white pubescent inside; reduced stamens fasciated, glabrous, ca. 1.5 mm in 3rd whorl, 2-glandular at middle and lower part of filaments; glands oblong, sometimes 1 or 2 in 2nd whorl; pistil ca. 2 mm; ovary ovate, ca. 1 mm; style ca. 0.8 mm; stigma disciform. Fruits subglobose, ca. 1 cm in diam.; stipes 1-1.5 cm, curved at maturity; hypocarpium ca. 3 mm in diam. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. Aug-Sep.

● Forests on mountain slopes, riversides, valleys. Anhui, Henan, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang.

The leaves and pericarp contain aromatic oil.