团花冬青 tuan hua dong qing

Trees evergreen, ca. 13 m tall, ca. 30 cm d.b.h. Young branchlets slender, longitudinally ridged and sulcate, glabrous or glabrescent; terminal buds narrowly conical, bud scales glabrous, ciliate. Stipules very minute, obscure; petiole 8-15 mm, abaxially raised, transversely rugose, adaxially narrowly sulcate, glabrous; leaf blade olivaceous or brownish olivaceous when dry, shiny, oblong or oblong-elliptic, rarely ovate-elliptic, 6-12 × 2-4 cm, subleathery, both surfaces glabrous, midvein impressed and glabrous adaxially, lateral veins 8-10 pairs, raised abaxially, evident adaxially, obliquely ascending, reticulate veins obscure, base obtuse, cuneate, or rarely rounded, margin serrate, apex acuminate, acumen 8-15 mm. Inflorescences: cymes, fasciculate, axillary on second year’s branchlets; bracts ovate, ciliate. Male inflorescences: cymes of order 1 or 2, 1-3-flowered; peduncles ca. 1 mm; pedicels 1-2 mm; bracteoles 2, basal, deltoid, ciliate; flowers 4-merous; calyx patelliform, ca. 2 mm in diam., deeply 4-lobed, lobes deltoid or suborbicular, ciliate; corolla 7-8 mm in diam., petals oblong, ca. 3.5 × 2 mm, basally slightly connate; stamens ca. as long as petals, anthers oblong, ca. 1 mm; rudimentary ovary subglobose, apex obtuse or subglobose. Female flowers not known. Infructescences: 1-fruited cymes; fruiting pedicels 1-3 mm. Fruit red, globose, 7-8 mm in diam.; persistent calyx explanate, ca. 2 mm in diam., ciliate; persistent stigma flattened, discoid or navel-like; pyrenes 4, oblong or subglobose, 5.5-7 mm, 4-5 mm in diam., both ends obtuse or rounded, abaxially palmately striate and sulcate, laterally reticulate, rugose and pitted, endocarp stony. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Sep-Nov.

Evergreen broad-leaved forests, forest margins, shrubby areas, mountain slopes; 200-900 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan [Malaysia, Myanmar, Vietnam].