小叶香槐 xiao ye xiang huai

Trees; bark gray-white or brown, lenticellate. Young branches green, glabrous. Leaves imparipinnate, 10-15 cm; petiole gray-brown pilose; leaflets 3- or 4-paired; stipel subu­late, glabrous; petiolule ca. 4 mm, brown pubescent; blades ovate, 2-4 × ca. 2 cm, membranous, pilose along veins abax­ially, veins obviously raised abaxially with obvious veinlets, base obtuse, apex acuminate. Panicle terminal; rachis slender, 5-10 cm, gray-brown hairy. Flowers ca. 7 mm; pedicel short, ca. 4 mm, pubescent. Calyx cup-shaped, with 2 caducous bracts at base, unequally toothed, hairy. Corolla white; standard ob­long, ca. 7 × 3.5 mm, rounded at apex, narrowing to claw at base, claw ca. 1.5 mm; wings ovate-oblong, claw ca. 2 mm; keels similar to wings. Ovary densely gray-white sericeous; style erect. Legumes narrowly winged on both sides, pilose. Fl. Oct.

● Guangxi.

This taxon is doubtfully a species of Cladrastis, and according to Duley and Vincent (Rhodora 105: 234-235. 2003), based on the de­scriptions, it may be conspecific with Maackia fauriei (H. Léveillé) Takeda (Cladrastis fauriei H. Léveillé), described from Korea.