滇南桂 dian nan gui

Trees, up to 20 m tall, ca. 25 cm d.b.h. Bark gray, smooth. Old branchlets yellow-brown, terete, longitudinally striate, glabrous, divaricate; young branchlets ± compressed tetragonous, gray-brown in color due to dense appressed gray puberulent indumentum. Buds small, narrowly ovoid, up to 4 mm; bud scales acute, densely gray puberulent outside. Leaves alternate or those on young branchlets always subopposite; petiole gray-brown, 0.5-1.2 cm, somewhat concave adaxially, densely puberulent; leaf blade greenish or gray-green and opaque abaxially, dark green and shiny adaxially, oblong to lanceolate-oblong, 7-17(-22) × 2-4.5(-6) cm, thinly leathery, ± appressed gray puberulent abaxially, glabrous adaxially, trinerved or triplinerved, midrib extending to leaf apex, midrib and basal lateral veins elevated on both surfaces and yellow-brown, basal lateral veins arising at or up to 6 mm above leaf base, arcuate-ascendant, evanescent below leaf apex, transverse veins and veinlets inconspicuous on both surfaces, base subrounded, apex obtuse or acute. Panicles axillary and terminal, 6-12 cm, several branched from base; branches elongate, branches and rachis ± compressed tetragonous, densely gray sericeous-puberulent. Pedicels 3-4 mm, densely gray puberulent. Flowers yellowish brown, ca. 4 mm when open. Perianth densely gray sericeous-puberulent outside and inside; perianth tube obconical, ca. 1 mm, longitudinally sulcate when dry; perianth lobes 6, narrowly ovate, subequal, ca. 3 × 1.6 mm, acute. Fertile stamens 9, subequal, ca. 2.5 mm; filaments pilose, those of 3rd whorl each with 2 shortly stalked orbicular-reniform glands near base, others glandless; anthers oblong, almost as long as filaments, 4-celled; cells introrse (of 1st and 2nd whorls) or extrorse (of 3rd whorl). Staminodes 3, ca. 1.6 mm, stalked, narrowly sagittate-triangular at apex. Ovary ovoid, ca. 1.2 mm; style elongate, ca. 1.8 mm; stigma somewhat discoid. Fruit green when fresh, dark brown when dry, ovoid, ca. 6 × 5 mm, rounded and apiculate at apex, apex brown; perianth cup in fruit dark brown, caplike, up to 6 mm wide, apex truncate or slightly undulate. Fl. Apr, fr. May-Jun.

● Shady sites in tropical forests; 200-600 m. S Yunnan.