红柿 hong shi

Diospyros hayatai Odashima; D. oldhamii Maximowicz var. chartacea Hayata; D. taitoensis Odashima.

Trees, small, deciduous. Branchlets reddish brown, glabrous. Petiole 1--3 cm; leaf blade broadly lanceolate, l0--l5 X 5--6 cm, submembranous, both surfaces glabrous or very scattered pubescent, abaxially drying with dark veinlets contrasting with paler background, adaxially brown, both ends acute to obtuse, margin sometimes inconspicuously crenulate, lateral veins 4--6(or 7) per side and prominentmost vein extending to near leaf apex, reticulate veinlets flat and clearly defined. Male flowers in 1--7-flowered cymes; peduncle to 4 mm; pedicel ca. 5 mm, glabrous; calyx less than 1/2 as long as corolla, glabrous; calyx lobes 4, triangular, longer than tube, ca. 1.5 X 1 mm; corolla glabrous, urn-shaped, 8--10 mm, glabrous; corolla lobes 4, 2--3 mm wide, apex rounded. Fruit solitary, sessile. Fruiting calyx nearly square, ca. 1.4 cm in diam., outside sparsely appressed white pubescent, inside densely chestnut brown sericeous, lobes 4. Berries depressed globose to ellipsoid, 2--3.5 X 2--2.8 cm, 8-locular, glabrous, apex cuspidate. Seeds brown, compressed oblong, ca. 1.1 cm. Fr. Oct.

Broadleaved forests; ca. l000 m. C and E Taiwan [Japan].