小核冬青 xiao he dong qing

Shrubs evergreen, ca. 1.7 m tall. Current year’s branchlets longitudinally angular, glabrous; second year’s branchlets terete, smooth; leaf scars slightly raised, semicircular, lenticels obscure; terminal buds conical, bud scales serrulate, glabrous. Petiole 8-13 mm, abaxially transversely rugose, adaxially narrowly sulcate, glabrous; leaf blade oblong-elliptic or oblong-lanceolate, (6-)7-12 × 2.2-4 cm, leathery, both surfaces glabrous, midvein impressed adaxially, lateral veins 8-10 pairs, raised abaxially, minutely raised or ± flat adaxially, straight and ascending, furcate and anastomosing near margin, reticulate veins evident abaxially, obscure adaxially, base obtuse or broadly cuneate, margin slightly reflexed, sparsely crenulate-serrate, teeth black, apex acuminate. Flowers not known. Infructescences: 1-fruited cymes, pseudoracemose, axillary on current year’s branchlets; rachis 5-7 mm, stout, glabrous or minutely puberulent; fruiting pedicels 5-7 mm, minutely puberulent; bract 1, basal, ovate-deltoid; bracteoles 2, submedian. Fruit globose, 5-6 mm in diam.; persistent calyx explanate, patelliform, glabrous; persistent stigma thinly discoid, 4-lobed; pyrenes 4, broadly ellipsoidal, ca. 2.5 mm, ca. 2 mm in diam., abaxially palmately striate and 3- or 4-sulcate, laterally shallowly pitted, smooth, not striate, endocarp stony. Fl. unknown, fr. Aug-Sep.

● Forests, stream banks; ca. 1700 m. NW Yunnan (Gongshan).