沙坝冬青 sha ba dong qing

Ilex howii Merrill & Chun; I. megistocarpa Merrill.

Trees deciduous, 9-16 m tall. Branchlets castaneous, minutely sparsely puberulent or glabrescent, with numerous conspicuous lenticels and raised leaf scars; spur branchlets 3-5 mm, with scales and raised leaf scars. Stipules persistent, deltoid, minute; petiole 1.2-3 cm, adaxially deeply and narrowly sulcate, distal ends narrowly winged by decurrent leaf base, glabrous; leaf blade brown-olivaceous when dry, ovate-elliptic or oblong-elliptic to elliptic, 5-11 × 3-3.5 cm, papery or thinly leathery, both surfaces glabrous, rarely puberulent on both surfaces when young, midvein impressed adaxially, lateral veins 8-10 pairs, raised abaxially, slightly impressed or flat adaxially, glabrous, anastomosing near margin, reticulate veins evident abaxially, base obtuse or acute, rarely rounded, margin crenulate-serrulate, apex shortly acuminate or obtuse, rarely rounded. Male inflorescences: cymes of order 1-3, 1-5-flowered, pseudofasciculate; peduncles 1-2 mm; pedicels 2-4 mm; 1-flowered pedicels ca. 3 mm, puberulent; bracteoles 2, basal; flowers 6-8-merous; calyx ca. 4 mm in diam., glabrous or puberulent, 6-8-lobed, lobes orbicular, ciliate; petals obovate-oblong, 4-5 mm, basally slightly connate, ciliate; stamens ca. as long as petals, anthers ovoid-oblong; rudimentary ovary conical, rostellate, apex shallowly lobed. Female inflorescences: 1-flowered cymes, solitary, axillary at scales of spur branchlets, rarely at leaf axis; pedicels 6-10 mm, puberulent; bracteoles 2, basal; calyx 6- or 7-lobed, as in male flowers; corolla suberect, ca. 8 mm in diam., petals ca. 4 mm; staminodes ca. 2/3 as long as petals, sterile anthers sagittate; ovary ovoid, ca. 2 mm, style present, puberulent, stigma capitate, ca. 2 mm, conspicuously lobed. Fruit green when mature (black when drying), globose, 1.2-2 cm in diam.; persistent calyx explanate; persistent stigma columnar; pyrenes 6 or 7, oblong, ca. 1.3 cm, ca. 4 mm in diam., abaxially 3-striate, 2-sulcate, laterally 1- or 2-striate and sulcate, endocarp bony. Fl. Apr, fr. Oct-Nov.

Sparse forests, mixed forests on mountains; 500-3000 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, SE Yunnan [N Vietnam].