野槟榔 ye bing lang

Shrubs or climbers, to 5 m tall. Twigs black when dry, terete, rust-colored shortly pubescent when young but glabrescent. Stipular spines to 5 mm, stout, recurved, apex sharp. Petiole 5-10 mm, trichomes like those on twigs; leaf blade obovate-oblong, obovate-elliptic, or sometimes elliptic, 3.5-8.5 × 1.8-4 cm, thinly leathery, yellowish green to dark brown when dry, both surfaces glabrous except abaxial midvein with sparse short pubescence but glabrescent, midvein abaxially raised and adaxially impressed or flat, secondary veins 4 or 5 on each side of midvein, slender, abaxially obvious, and adaxially not obvious, reticulate veins not obvious on both surfaces, base cuneate to rounded, apex acute, obtuse, or rounded and sometimes shortly tipped. Inflorescences axillary corymbs or short racemes or axillary and on branch apex together forming a panicle, 10-15-flowered; peduncle 2-4 cm, with a spine at base; axis densely rust-colored shortly tomentose. Pedicel 0.7-1.7 cm, with a pair of yellow sharp spines at base, trichomes like those on rachis. Sepals ca. 7.5 × 4-5 mm; sepals of outer whorl inwardly concave to navicular, outside rust-colored shortly pubescent, inside glabrous; sepals of inner whorl obovate, glabrous. Petals narrowly orbicular, 8-9 × ca. 3 mm, glabrous except margins basally ciliate. Stamens 35-40; filaments length unknown; anthers length unknown. Gynophore 1.5-2 cm; ovary ovoid, ca. 2 × 1.5 mm; placentae 4; ovules many. Fruit purplish black when mature, globose, 1.5-4 cm in diam., smooth; fruiting gynophore 2-3 mm in diam., thickened, woody. Seeds 7-9 or more per fruit, reddish brown, ca. 10 × 8 × 5 mm, smooth. Fl. Mar-May, fr. Nov-Dec.

● Thickets or forests on stony mountains; below 1000 m. N and W Guangxi, SE Yunnan.

Jacobs (Blumea 12: 540. 1965) surmised this is a subspecies of Capparis sikkimensis.