厚叶瑞香 hou ye rui xiang

Shrubs evergreen, ca. 0.7 m tall. Branches dark gray, robust, at first sparsely appressed brownish pubescent; leaf scars reniform. Leaves alternate; petiole 2-5 mm, glabrous; leaf blade brownish green abaxially, narrowly oblong-elliptic, 5-11.2 × (1-)1.5-3.8 cm, thickly leathery, adaxially rugose, glabrous except for ciliate margins and apical tuft of hairs, base cuneate-decurrent, margin revolute, apex acute or subobtuse; lateral veins 5-9 per side of midrib. Inflorescences terminal on reduced lateral branches, 5-15-flowered; peduncle to 12 mm, densely rusty pubescent, or absent; bracts narrowly oblanceolate to elliptic, 10-16 × 2.5-3.5 mm, apex acute or rarely obuse, with apical tuft of hairs. Pedicel absent. Calyx white; tube cylindric, ca. 8 × 3 mm, exterior appressed brownish pubescent; lobes 4, narrowly ovate, ca. 4 × 1-2 mm, sparsely pubescent, apex slightly acuminate. Stamens 8, lower whorl inserted at middle of calyx tube, upper whorl in throat; filaments ca. 0.5 mm; anthers oblong, ca. 1.5 mm, upper ones ca. 1/2 exserted from calyx tube. Disk cupshaped, ca. 0.5 mm, margin entire. Ovary shortly stipitate, ellipsoid, ca. 1.5 × 0.7 mm, glabrous; style ca. 0.3 mm; stigma capitate. Fruit not seen.

● Forests on limestone hills; 1200-1300 m. W Guangxi (Napo).

Daphne pachyphylla is a member of the group of species closely allied to D. bholua and D. papyracea , including species nos. 44-50 in this treatment. It is known to us only from the protologue, which suggests that it can most easily be distinguished by the brownish undersides of the thickly leathery leaf blades and by the distinctive, ciliate margins and tufted apices of the leaf blades and bracts.