黄木巴戟 huang mu ba ji

Erect shrubs or small trees, ca. 6 m tall; branches quadrangular, glabrous. Leaves opposite, or solitary opposite an inflorescence; petiole 0.5-1 cm, glabrous; blade drying papery, matte on both surfaces, brownish green, elliptic-oblong, elliptic, oblong-lanceolate, or oblanceolate, 15-30 × 6-10 cm, adaxially glabrous, abaxially scabrous to glabrous or sometimes sparsely hirtellous on veins, base acute to attenuate, apex acute to acuminate; secondary veins 9-13 pairs; stipules interpetiolar, free or shortly united to petioles, triangular, 4.5-5 mm, acuminate or acute. Inflorescence solitary and leaf-opposed; peduncle 1.5-4 cm; flowering head 1, subglobose to cylindrical, many flowered, 0.8-2.5 cm (not including corollas); bracteoles subulate. Flowers fused only shortly at base, distylous. Calyx glabrous; limb truncate to denticulate, ca. 1 mm. Corolla white, salverform, outside glabrous; tube cylindrical to slenderly funnelform, 16-33 mm; lobes 5, ovate-lanceolate, 4-15 mm, acute. Ovary 4-celled. Drupecetum mulberry-shaped, subglobose, or ellipsoid-oblong, to 2.5 cm in diam. Drupes partially fused to nearly separate, white or black, obovoid to subglobose, 10-15 mm. Fl. Apr-May, fr. summer-autumn.

Forests; 500-1400 m. S Yunnan [Bhutan, India, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand].

The inflorescences are indeterminate and begin flowering with ± a dozen developed buds; the flowers continue to be produced through growth at the top of the spike while the fruit are developing on the lower parts, thus the older inflorescences become cylindrical or oblong in shape. Y. Z. Ruan (in FRPS 71(2): 185. 1999) described the inflorescence position as consistently leaf-opposed at the terminal node; however, inflorescences can also be found along the stem well below its apex (e.g., Tsi Zhanhou 92-130, MO), and the infructescences are usually found along the stem well below the apex (e.g., Puff et al., Rubiaceae of Thailand, 113. 2005).