虎刺楤木 hu ci cong mu

Panax finlaysonianus Wallich ex G. Don, Gen. Hist. 3: 386. 1834.

Shrubs, slender, sometimes vinelike, 1.5-4 m tall, andromonoecious. Branches prickly. Leaves 3- or 4-pinnately compound, with a pair of accessory leaflets or pinnae at each division of rachis; petiole 25-55 cm, glabrous or setaceous, with dense prickles; petiolules absent or ca. 15 mm; leaflets 3-5 per pinna, ovate, narrowly ovate, or lanceolate, 2.5-7.5 × 1-3.5 cm, papery to thinly papery, abaxially pale green, pubescent or pilose, rarely glabrescent, adaxially green, sparsely strigose, secondary veins 5-7 pairs, base rounded to obtuse, margin serrulate to serrate or doubly serrate, ± ciliate, apex acuminate to long acuminate. Inflorescence a terminal or axillary panicle of umbels, with short, recurved prickles; primary axis to 80 cm; ultimate axes with a terminal umbel of bisexual flowers and several lateral umbels of male flowers; bracts caducous, narrowly triangular to lanceolate; umbels 20-50-flowered; pedicels 10-25 mm, bristly, sometimes pilose or glabrescent. Ovary 5(-7)-carpellate; styles 5(-7), united basally, free apically. Fruit globose to ovoid-globose, 5-6 mm in diam.; styles persistent, recurved. Fl. Jan-Dec, fr. Jan-Dec.

Dense forests, forest margins, thickets, open thickets, streamsides, roadsides; 100-1300 m. Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Yunnan [N Thailand, Vietnam].