海南九节 hai nan jiu jie

Shrubs, 0.5-3 m tall; stems glabrous. Petiole 0.4-3.5 cm, glabrous; leaf blade drying papery, grayish brown, grayish green, abaxially paler to silvery, elliptic, oblong-elliptic, lanceolate, or lanceolate-oblong, 4.5-16 × 2-6 cm, glabrous on both surfaces or puberulent abaxially, base acute to cuneate, margins flat, apex acute to acuminate; secondary veins 6-14 pairs, forming a rather straight submarginal vein, without domatia; stipules caducous, subtriangular to ovate, interpetiolar, 3-12 mm, glabrous to puberulent, 2-lobed for 1/3-1/2, lobes linear-lanceolate to subulate. Inflorescences terminal, congested-cymose to subcapitate, few flowered, puberulent to glabrous, subsessile to pedunculate; peduncle to 0.6 cm; branched portion subglobose, ca. 2 × 2 cm, without developed axes; bracts linear-lanceolate, 2-7 mm; pedicels 0.5-4 mm. Flowers subsessile to shortly pedicellate. Calyx glabrous; hypanthium portion turbinate, ca. 1 mm; limb 2-3 mm, deeply lobed; lobes linear-lanceolate to narrowly ligulate. Corolla white, glabrous outside; tube ca. 4 mm, white villous in throat; lobes oblong-triangular, 1.5-2 mm, apex incurved. Drupes red, ovoid or elliptic, 7-11 × 4.5-7 mm, with pedicels to 8 mm; pyrenes 3- or 5-ribbed. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Jun-Feb of following year.

● Forests along valley streams; 600-1200 m. Hainan.

In the protologue the stipules were incorrectly described as "apice longe acuminatis." In fact, it is the individual lobes that are long acuminate, while the stipules are deeply bilobed.