黑毛四照花 hei mao si zhao hua

Cynoxylon melanotrichum Pojarkova, Bot. Mater. Gerb. Bot. Inst. Komarova Akad. Nauk SSSR 12: 191. 1950 ["melanotricha"]; Cornus hongkongensis var. jinyunensis (W. P. Fang & W. K. Hu) Q. Y. Xiang; Dendrobenthamia ferruginea (C. Y. Wu) W. P. Fang var. jinyunensis (W. P. Fang & W. K. Hu) W. P. Fang & W. K. Hu; D. gigantea (Handel-Mazzetti) W. P. Fang var. caudata W. P. Fang & W. K. Hu; D. jinyunensis W. P. Fang & W. K. Hu; D. melanotricha (Pojarkova) W. P. Fang.

Trees or shrubs, evergreen, 3–12 m tall. Bark dark gray or dark brown; old branches grayish brown, glabrous, often without lenticels. Leaf blade elliptic to narrowly elliptic, 6–10 × 2.7–5 cm, subleathery or leathery, abaxially when young sparsely pubescent with white or brown short appressed trichomes, often glabrous in age, axils of veins with clusters of dark brown Y-shaped long trichomes, veins 3(or 4), conspicuous. Inflorescences greenish yellow, ca. 1 cm in diam., ca. 40-flowered; bracts at first yellowish green, later creamy white, broadly elliptic or broadly obovate, 2–4 × 1–3.5 cm, glabrous. Calyx tube ca. 0.9 mm, with brown trichomes at base. Petals narrowly elliptic or narrowly ovate, 2.8–3 × ca. 1 mm, outside sparsely pubescent. Filaments ca. 2.2 mm, glabrous; anthers brown, ovoid-ellipsoid, ca. 1 mm. Style ca. 1.3 mm, pubescent with white trichomes. Compound fruit red at maturity, 2–2.5 cm in diam., peduncle 3.7–9.5 cm. Fl. May–Jun, fr. Oct–Nov.

Evergreen broad-leaved forests; 400–1800 m. Guizhou, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan.

The hard wood is used for making farming tools.