海茜树 hai qian shu

Trees 5-12 m tall; branches angled or flattened, rather stout, glabrous or glabrescent, often markedly sylleptic from nodes below leaves with markedly elongated lowermost internode, with scars of petioles often enlarged. Leaves opposite or usually whorls of 3; petiole stout, 1-5 mm, glabrous; blade drying stiffly papery, elliptic, elliptic-oblong, or broadly elliptic, 8.4-17 × 3-7.5 cm, adaxially glabrous, abaxially moderately to sparsely strigillose, base cuneate to acute and often tapered, apex acuminate; secondary veins 5-7 pairs, usually with densely pilosulous domatia; stipules caducous often leaving a ring of persistent trichomes 0.5-1 mm, triangular to lanceolate, 5-7 mm, abaxially moderately strigose, adaxially densely sericeous, acute to acuminate. Inflorescences strigose to glabrous, staminate 3-7-flowered, pistillate 1-flowered; peduncles 0.5-3 cm; bracts lanceolate to triangular, 0.5-2 mm, usually fused in pairs. Flowers subtended at immediate base by 2 to several persistent bracteoles 0.5-1 mm, these sometimes shortly fused in pairs. Calyx sparsely strigillose to glabrous; ovary portion subglobose, 2.5-3.5 mm in diam.; limb tubular, 1-2 mm, truncate or undulate to 5- or 6-denticulate. Corolla outside densely velutinous-strigillose to sericeous; tube 4-7 mm, glabrous inside; lobes 6-8, narrowly triangular, 4-7 mm, acute. Drupes subglobose to oblate, 8-10 × 10-14 mm, glabrescent, color not noted; pyrenes 50 or more, subcylindrical, 6-7 × 2-2.5 mm. Fl. Apr, Nov, fr. Apr-Jun.

Near sea level to 400 m. Taiwan [Philippines].

The pubescence of the lower leaf surface is nearly colorless and arranged along the higher order veins; thus, it is often difficult to see, even with good magnification, and has been overlooked by some authors.