黑叶锥 hei ye zhui

Trees usually 8-15 m tall. First-year branchlets dull blackish brown, often sparsely and thinly grayish pruinose. Petiole 1-2 cm; leaf blade ovate, ovate-elliptic, or rarely lanceolate, 8-15 × 3-6 cm, leathery, abaxially covered with yellowish brown, tightly adnate layers of waxy scalelike trichomes when young, but layers becoming grayish, sparser and thinner with age, adaxially blackish brown to brownish black when dry, base rounded and symmetric or slightly oblique, margin entire, apex acuminate to mucronate; midvein at least from middle to apex adaxially slightly impressed or rarely flat; secondary veins 10-13 on each side of midvein, slender, evident, abaxially slightly raised. Rachis of inflorescences grayish puberulent, glabrescent. Infructescences 5-15 cm; rachis 5-7 mm thick, with cupules crowded from middle to apex. Cupule subglobose, 4-4.5 cm in diam., outside grayish to yellowish gray puberulent, inside brown long tomentose, wall 3-5 mm thick; bracts spinelike, very dense, 1-1.6 cm, grayish to yellowish gray puberulent, free or connate at base or to apical 1/2 and in bundles, usually united to cristate rings. Nut 1 per cupule, broadly ovoid, ca. 2.5 cm, densely pubescent, apex acute; scar covering ca. 1/3 of nut. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Sep-Oct of following year.

* Mixed mesophytic and broad-leaved evergreen forests; 200-1000 m. S Fujian, Guangdong, S Guangxi, S Hunan, Jiangxi (Dingnan Xian, Ningdu Xian)