白背叶 bai bei ye

Shrubs or small trees 1-6 m tall. Branchlets whitish and brownish stellate-tomentulose when young. Stipules subulate, 2.5-4 mm, deciduous; petiole 5-15 cm, whitish tomentulose; leaf blade broadly ovate, 5-60 × 4-20 cm, papery, abaxially whitish tomentulose and scattered orange glandular-scaly, adaxially glabrescent or sparsely stellate-pilosulose, base truncate or contracted cuneate, rarely slightly cordate, with 2 basal glands, margin repand-denticulate, apex acute or acuminate; basal veins 3. Male inflorescences terminal, branched or unbranched, 15-50 cm, whitish tomentulose; bracts triangular, ca. 2.5 mm. Male flowers 1-5-fascicled; pedicel ca. 3 mm; calyx lobes 4, ovate, ca. 3 mm, tomentulose; stamens 50-75. Female inflorescences unbranched; peduncle 5-10 cm; bracts linear ca. 3 mm; infructescence 15-60 cm, densely cylindric, whitish tomentose. Female flowers: pedicel 1.5-2 mm; calyx lobes 3-5, ovate to triangular, 2.5-3 mm, tomentose; ovary 3(or 4)-locular, with stellate-tomentulose hairs; style ca. 3 mm, plumose. Capsule subglobose, densely softly spiny, spines filiform, 3-8 mm, whitish stellate-pubescent. Seeds ovoid, ca. 4 mm, often black, verruculose. Fl. May-Sep, fr. Aug-Nov.

Hill slopes, mountain valleys, thickets, forests; below 100-1000 m. SW Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, S Hunan, S Jiangxi, S Yunnan [Vietnam].

Lower Taxa

• Mallotus apelta var. apelta
• Mallotus apelta var. kwangsiensis F. P. Metcalf