膝柱胡颓子 xi zhu hu tui zi

Shrubs, evergreen, climbing. Spines absent; young branches with dense reddish scales, later scales turning brown. Petiole brown, 3-7 mm; leaf blade abaxially greenish gray, adaxially drying dark green, ovate, rarely narrowly ovate or ovate-elliptic, (1-)3-6 × (0.5-)1.4-3 cm, papery or thickly papery, abaxially densely scaly, adaxially at first densely scaly, midrib ± flat to slightly impressed, lateral veins 5-8 per side of midrib, inconspicuous, base obtuse, margin entire, apex acute. Flowers solitary, often grouped subapically on racemelike lateral shoots 0.5-7.5 cm. Pedicel 3-5 mm. Flowers grayish brown, outside with dense grayish white and sparse brown scales. Calyx tube campanulate, 4-angled, (3-)4 mm, 2-2.5 mm in diam. at mouth, conspicuously constricted above ovary; lobes broadly ovate-triangular, 3.5-4 × ca. 3 mm, inside densely brownish scaly and sparsely white pilose, apex acute. Filaments ca. 1 mm; anthers ca. 1.5 mm. Style bent at ca. middle, slightly thickened, glabrous; stigma oblique, ca. 1 mm. Fruit not seen. Fl. Feb.

● Rocky hills. Guangxi (Longzhou).

Elaeagnus geniculata is known to us only from the protologue.