台湾核子木 tai wan he zi mu

Shrubs or trees, 3-4 m tall, dioecious, spindly. Branchlets purplish brown, pale brown tomentulose when young, glabrescent. Stipules scalelike, triangular, ca. 1 mm, brown puberulent, caducous. Petiole 0.5-1.5(-2) cm; leaf blade elliptic-oblong to lanceolate, 5-12(-16) × 2-5(-7) cm, papery, abaxially pale brown tomentulose along midvein and secondary veins when young but soon glabrescent except sometimes along basal part of midvein and secondary vein axils, adaxially glabrous, midvein and secondary veins abaxially elevated and adaxially ± flat, base often slightly asymmetric and rounded to cuneate, margin sharply serrulate, apex caudate-acuminate, cauda usually slightly curved. Inflorescences thyrses in a panicle, 2-4.5 cm. Flowers mostly 4-merous, ca. 2.5 mm in diam. Pedicel 1.5-3 mm, jointed, sparsely tomentulose, glabrescent. Sepals and petals 8, undifferentiated, greenish yellow, narrowly oblong, ca. 1 mm, glabrous, persistent on female plants in fruit, margin sometimes reddish, apex acuminate. Male flowers: stamens 4, inserted on disk margin, included in perianth; anthers yellowish, subglobose to ellipsoid, ca. 0.4 mm. Female flowers: ovary glabrous; style ca. 1.5 mm, persistent in fruit, apically 2-lobed. Berry reddish turning black when mature, slightly depressed globose, ca. 1.5 × 1.7 mm, 2-loculed, apex emarginate. Seeds 2 per locule. Fl. Apr-Oct, fr. Jul-Nov.

● Broad-leaved evergreen forests, woodlands, scrub; 400-2500 m. Taiwan.