云南刺篱木 yun nan ci li mu

Stigmarota jangomas Loureiro, Fl. Cochinch. 2: 634. 1790; Flacourtia cataphracta Roxburgh ex Willdenow.

Large shrubs or small trees, 5-10 m tall, deciduous; trunk and older branches usually unarmed, young branches with simple or divaricate spines; bark yellow-brown, reddish brown, or light brown, flaky; young branches smooth, glabrous or sparsely pubescent, lenticellate. Petiole 4-8 mm, pubescent or glabrescent; leaf blade dark green abaxially, shiny adaxially, in fresh state pinkish to reddish or orange-brown when young, narrowly ovate, ovate-elliptic, or ovate-oblong, rarely oblong-lanceolate or (slightly) obovate-lanceolate, 7-14 × 2-5 cm, thinly leathery to papery, both surfaces practically glabrous, any hairs present very short, midvein slightly raised on both surfaces, lateral veins 3-6 pairs, conspicuous adaxially, base acute, obtuse, or rounded, margin entire or serrate to crenate, apex obtuse or gradually tapering to narrowly acuminate, rarely more abruptly acuminate. Inflorescences axillary, racemose; rachis 0.5-2 cm, puberulous. Pedicels 5-10(-15) mm, very slender, minutely and sparsely puberulous or glabrous; bracts ovate, 0.5-1 mm, outside glabrous or sparsely hairy, inside pubescent, margin entire, ciliate. Flowers appearing with or before young leaves, white to greenish, honey-scented. Sepals 4 or 5, ca. 2 mm, ovate-triangular, apex obtuse, outside practically glabrous, inside pubescent, margin ciliate, hairs very short, often barely visible in female flowers. Staminate flowers: stamen filaments 2-3 mm, glabrous. Pistillate flowers: ovary bottle-shaped to globose, 2-3 mm; styles 4-6, united into a distinct column ca. 1 mm, not or slightly free at their apices; stigmas slightly reniform, dilated, recurved. Fruit brownish red or purple, finally blackish, subglobose, fleshy, 1.5-2.5 cm in diam., in dried material sometimes constricted at equator, style column persistent. Seeds 4 or 5(-10). Fl. Apr-May, fr. May-Oct.

● Mountain rain forests, evergreen broad-leaved forests; 700-800 m. W Guangxi, S Hainan, S Yunnan.

According to Sleumer (Fl. Males., ser. 1, 5(1): 73. 1954), Flacourtia jangomas is not known in the wild state. The species is cultivated around villages, and naturalized from them, throughout tropical regions, especially in E Africa and tropical Asia.

Morse 498 (K), from Guangxi, determined as "cf. Flacourtia jangomas" by Sleumer (determination slip dated 1954 on herbarium sheet), has pubescent stamen filaments. The leaves are small, ovate to narrowly elliptic, and possibly young. The specimen might represent immature F. ramontchi.