贡山冬青 gong shan dong qing

Trees evergreen, ca. 18 m tall, glabrous throughout. Young branchlets castaneous, turning yellowish brown to gray, plicate-rugose, with broadly deltoid-elliptic leaf scars, lenticels absent; terminal buds ellipsoidal-conical, large, ca. 1.5 cm, bud scales glabrous, margin serrate. Leaves on first to third year’s branchlets; petiole 1.2-3 cm, abaxially rugose, shallowly and narrowly sulcate; leaf blade cinereous-olivaceous or brown-olivaceous, not shiny, elliptic or obovate-elliptic, 5-14 × 2-4.5 cm, thickly leathery, midvein deeply impressed adaxially, lateral veins 11-15 pairs, and reticulate veins raised abaxially, impressed adaxially, base obtuse or rounded, margin serrate, teeth black, thin, apex acute or shortly acuminate. Inflorescences: cymes, fasciculate, axillary on second year’s branchlets; bracts ovate-orbicular, glabrous, not ciliate; flowers white-green, 4-merous. Male inflorescences: cymes of order 1 or 2, 1-3-flowered; peduncles ca. 1 mm; pedicels 2-3 mm, glabrous; bracteoles 2, subbasal; calyx patelliform, ca. 2.5 mm in diam., deeply 4-lobed, lobes deltoid-ovate, apex obtuse; petals 4, oblong-ovate, ca. 2.5 × 2 mm, basally slightly connate; stamens slightly shorter than petals, anthers oblong, ca. 1 mm; rudimentary ovary subglobose, ca. 1 mm, apex obtuse, slightly 4-lobed. Female inflorescences: 1-flowered cymes; pedicels 6-8 mm; bracteoles 2, subbasal, broadly deltoid; calyx and corolla as in male flowers; staminodes ca. 1/2 as long as petals, sterile anthers sagittate; ovary ovoid, ca. 2 mm, ca. 1.5 mm in diam., apex truncate, stigma discoid, 4-lobed. Fruit globose, ca. 6 mm in diam.; persistent calyx explanate, ca. 4 mm in diam.; persistent stigma thinly discoid, 4-lobed; pyrenes 4, ellipsoidal, ca. 5 mm, ca. 2 mm in diam., abaxially and laterally palmately striate and deeply sulcate, pilose, endocarp leathery. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Oct-Nov. 2n = 40*.

Broad-leaved forests, hill slopes; 2100-3000 m. Xizang (Chumbi Valley), NW Yunnan [Bhutan, India, N Myanmar].