四川卫矛 si chuan wei mao

Deciduous shrubs, ca. 3 m tall; branches and twigs moderately sturdy, striate, brown or gray-brown when dry. Petiole less than 1 cm; leaf blade thickly papery, ovate-elliptic, obovate, or obovate-elliptic, 6-11 × 3-4 cm, base cuneate or attenuate, margin finely crenulate, apex acuminate, caudate, or acute; lateral veins 5 or 6 pairs, disappearing before reaching margin. Peduncle slender, up to 10 cm or more, 1 or 2 × dichotomously branched with several to many flowers; pedicel slender, ca. 10 mm. Flowers 5-merous, up to 1.2 cm in diam.; sepals suborbicular, short; petals dark red or purple, obovate, apex rotund, base cuneate. Ovary weakly angulate. Capsule green to brown, or yellow-brown when dry, nearly globose, ca. 1 cm in diam., with 5 wide and sharp wings, less than ca. 6 × 5 mm when fully developed. Aril bright red. Fl. Apr-Jul, fr. Jul-Aug.

● Forests; 700-1600 m. Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan.

This species has 5 spreading wings on the capsule, and the flower is very large and purple; these characters are very different from the others in the section.