双盾木 shuang dun mu

Dipelta floribunda var. parviflora Rehder.

Shrubs or small trees, to 6 m tall, deciduous. Branches glandular hairy, becoming glabrous. Petiole 6-14 mm; leaf blade ovate to lanceolate, 4-10 × 1.5-6 cm, midvein white pubescent, base cuneate or obtuse, margin entire, occasionally remotely 2- or 3-dentate at apex, apex acute or long acuminate. Peduncles to 10 mm; ovaries with 4 bracts tightly adnate to base; 2 outer bracts larger, peltate, obscuring sepals at anthesis, accrescent to 20 mm wide when mature, dry membranous, with conspicuous veins; 2 inner bracts smaller, unequal, one ovate, other smaller and narrowly elliptic. Calyx 5-lobed, glandular hairy; lobes linear, 5-7 mm. Corolla white to pink, bilabiate, narrowly cylindrical at base, flaring and campanulate in upper part, 25-40 mm; lower lip with reticulate orange-yellow markings. Ovary pubescent; style filiform, glabrous to sparsely hairy. Achene crowned with persistent calyx, enclosed within 2 accrescent, membranous, winglike, peltate bracts. Fl. Apr-Jul, fr. Aug-Sep.

● Mixed forests, scrub; 600-2200 m. Gansu, Guangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Shaanxi, Sichuan.

Dipelta wenxianensis Y. F. Wang & Lian (Acta Bot. Boreal.-Occid. Sin. 14(6): 91, f. 92. 1994; as seen in the illustration but type specimen not located) and a specimen collected in Gansu (Wenxian: Bikou, D. E. Boufford 37425) with peltate bracts, pilose style, calyx divided to base, and short corolla tube both show intermediate characters between D. floribunda and D. yunnanensis. It is not excluded that other intermediate specimens exist.