榄形风车子 lan xing feng che zi

Combretum oliviforme A. C. Chao; C. oliviforme var. yaxianense Y. R. Ling.

Lianas to 2.5 m tall. Branchlets together with petioles glabrous and densely scaly. Leaves opposite; petiole 10-17 mm; leaf blade broadly elliptic, 7-13 × 5-8.5 cm, both surfaces glabrous, abaxially densely yellowish or brownish minutely scaly, adaxially white scaly and densely verruculose, base obtuse or subacute, apex obtuse and mucronate or shortly acuminate; lateral veins in 7 or 8 pairs. Inflorescences terminal and axillary, dichasially compound spikes 5-13 cm, usually grouped at branchlet apex and forming a panicle; axes densely villosulous, inconspicuously scaly; distal, flower-bearing part of spikes very condensed and forming obconic to hemispheric capitula; bracts caducous, linear, very small. Calyx tube distally narrowly funnelform, 11-13 mm, abaxially glabrous but yellow scaly at first, becoming smooth after anthesis, adaxially with a ring of dense, coarse hairs not exserted; lobes 4, reflexed, ± deltoid, ca. 2 mm, apex acute or shortly acuminate. Petals 4, white, oblong-elliptic or obovate, ca. 1.5 mm, apex obtuse-rounded or retuse. Stamens 8, exserted, 5-6 mm. Fruit subglobose, 4-winged, 2-3.5 × 2-2.5 cm, yellow or red scaly. Fl. Jul-Aug, fr. Aug.

Dense woods, dry thickets on sandy soil; 300-600 m. SW Guangxi (Longzhou), Hainan, Yunnan [Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam].

Combretum oliviforme was said to differ from C. sundaicum in having a distally cylindric-funnelform calyx tube and fusiform (vs. subglobose) fruit. These features of C. oliviforme are visible on the fruiting holotype (Hainan: S. K. Lau 27571, IBSC) and a flowering isotype (A). However, the calyx tube of C. sundaicum is likewise distally narrowly funnelform (e.g., drawing in Fl. Males., ser. 1, 4: 543. 1954) and the holotype of C. oliviforme has only immature fruit, which in Combretum tend to be narrower than the mature fruit. Combretum oliviforme var. yaxianense was said to differ from C. oliviforme in its subglobose fruit. The holotype of var. yaxianense (Hainan: C. Wang 33616, IBSC) is a branch with mature fruit. There therefore seems no justification to separate any of the Chinese plants from C. sundaicum.