岭罗麦 ling luo mai

Randia wallichii J. D. Hooker, Fl. Brit. India 3: 113. 1880; Aidia wallichii (J. D. Hooker) T. Yamazaki; Tarenna incerta Koorders & Valeton; T. pallida (Franchet ex Brandis) Hutchinson; Webera cavaleriei H. Léveillé; W. pallida Franchet ex Brandis.

Trees, 3-20 m tall; branches rather stout, compressed to angled, glabrous, with thin epidermis wrinkled and cracked, coppery brown to reddish purple-brown, deciduous leaving stems wrinkled to smooth. Petiole 1-3 cm, glabrous; leaf blade drying leathery and often paler below, elliptic-oblong, oblanceolate-oblong, or elliptic-lanceolate, 7-30 × 2.9-9 cm, adaxially shiny and glabrous, abaxially puberulent to glabrous, base cuneate to acute, margins often thinly revolute, apex obtuse to acuminate with tip often ultimately obtuse; secondary veins 5-13 pairs, in abaxial axils with foveolate and/or pilosulous domatia; stipules 4-10 mm, glabrous, acute to acuminate. Inflorescences 4-12 × 8-13 cm, densely hirtellous or pilosulous to tomentulose; bracts lanceolate to spatulate, 1-3 mm, acute to rounded; pedicels 1-5 mm. Calyx with ovary portion obconic, ca. 1 mm, densely puberulent to tomentulose; limb 1-2.5 mm, puberulent or tomentulose to glabrescent, with lobes linear to narrowly triangular, 0.5-0.7 mm, acute. Corolla yellow or white, outside glabrous [to sericeous], inside pilosulous in throat with pubescence sometimes extending onto lobes; tube 3-4 × ca. 1.5 mm; lobes spatulate-oblong, 3-4 mm, obtuse to rounded. Fruiting pedicels to 10 mm. Berry ovoid to subglobose, 7-18 mm in diam., glabrous; seeds ca. 5 mm. Fl. Mar-Jun, fr. Jul-Feb.

Forests or thickets at streamsides in valleys or on hills or mountains; 400-2200 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Yunnan [Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam].

Puff et al. (Rubiaceae of Thailand, 70. 2005) noted that the growth form or architecture of this species is strongly sympodial: "approached a Terminalian branching pattern." The flowers on our specimens appear to be strongly dichogamous, with the anthers fully developed and apparently dehiscing while the stigmas are still enclosed in the corolla tube; then after the anthers have released all their pollen the styles apparently elongate and the stigmas become fully exserted from the corolla.