山矾叶九节 shan fan ye jiu jie

Shrubs or small tees, 1-5 m tall; stems glabrous. Petiole 0.5-3.5 cm, glabrous; leaf blade drying papery to leathery, dark reddish green, brownish green, or clear green, oblong-obovate, elliptic-obovate, or elliptic-lanceolate, 6-12.7 × 2-6 cm, glabrous on both surfaces, base cuneate to acute, margins flat to thinly revolute, apex shortly and abruptly acuminate; secondary veins 6-12 pairs, free or forming a weak, incomplete, looping submarginal vein, sometimes with foveolate domatia; stipules caducous, ovate, interpetiolar or shortly fused around stem, 6-12 mm, glabrous outside (abaxially), inside (adaxially) densely villous, acuminate, entire or 2-denticulate. Inflorescence terminal, cymose-paniculiform, puberulent to hirtellous with pubescence often in lines, often glabrescent with age, pedunculate; peduncle 1-2.5 cm; branched portion pyramidal, 2.5-6 × 1.5-2.5 cm, with 2 or 3 pairs of developed secondary axes; bracts triangular, 0.1-1 mm. Flowers sessile and subsessile in glomerulate groups. Calyx glabrous; hypanthium portion turbinate, ca. 1 mm; limb ca. 0.5 mm, truncate to shallowly lobed; lobes triangular. Corolla presumably white, salverform to funnelform, glabrous outside; tube ca. 2 mm, in throat white villous; lobes ovate-triangular, 1.5-2.2 mm. Drupes red, ellipsoid, 6-9 × 4-6 mm; pyrenes with 1 longitudinal ridge. Fl. Feb-Apr, fr. Jun.

Forests on mountains; 1200-2300 m. Yunnan [India, Myanmar, N Thailand].