三桠苦 san ya ku

Zanthoxylum pteleifolium Champion ex Bentham, Hooker’s J. Bot. Kew Gard. Misc. 3: 350. 1851; Euodia gracilis Kurz; E. lepta Merrill, nom. illeg. superfl.; E. lepta var. cambodiana (Pierre) C. C. Huang; E. oreophila Guillaumin (1945), not Guillaumin (1938); E. pteleifolia (Champion ex Bentham) Merrill; E. triphylla (Lamarck) Candolle var. cambodiana Pierre; Ilex lepta Sprengel, nom. illeg. superfl.; Lepta triphylla Loureiro.

Shrubs or trees, rarely scandent, 1-14 m tall, dioecious or rarely monoclinous. Young branchlets 2.5-4 mm wide in third internode. Leaves 3-foliolate (occasional leaves 1-foliolate); petiole 1.5-14 cm, glabrous to pubescent; leaflet blades ovate-elliptic, elliptic, elliptic-obovate, or narrowly so, in terminal leaflet 6-22 × 2-8 cm, glabrous or puberulent on midvein especially abaxially, apex acuminate or subcaudate. Inflorescences axillary and sometimes basal to leaves, 2-10 × 1.5-8 cm; peduncle 0.4-5 cm; larger primary branches usually spreading. Pedicel 0.6-3 mm but 1.5-6 mm in fruit, sparsely puberulent to pubescent. Sepals 0.5-1(-1.5) mm, connate at base or to ca. 1/4 their length, glabrous or outside pubescent, persistent in fruit. Petals 1.3-2(-2.5) mm, deciduous or rarely persistent in fruit. Stamens 4, in male and bisexual flowers 1.5-3(-4) mm, in female flowers 0.4-1.5 mm; filaments at least in male and bisexual flowers subulate to filiform at apex. Gynoecium in female and bisexual flowers 1-2 mm, in male flowers 0.2-0.5 mm; ovary glabrous to pubescent. Fruit follicles subglobose to ellipsoid to obovoid, (3-)3.5-7.5 mm, glabrous or sparsely puberulent. Seeds subglobose to ovoid to ellipsoid, 2.5-4 mm, attachment Type B. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. Jul-Oct.

Evergreen and mixed deciduous forests and forest margins, thickets, swamp forests, open places; near sea level to 2300(-2800) m. Fujian, Guangdong, SW Guangxi, Hainan, S Jiangxi, Taiwan, Yunnan, SE Zhejiang [Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam].