独龙冬青 du long dong qing

Shrubs evergreen, 0.5-4 m tall. Young branchlets terete, slender, longitudinally striate, densely pubescent. Stipules narrowly lanceolate, ca. 1.5 mm; petiole 2-4 mm, adaxially narrowly sulcate, densely pubescent; leaf blade abaxially greenish, adaxially green, elliptic, 1-3 × 0.8-1.5 cm, leathery or subleathery, abaxially glandular punctate, both surfaces sparsely pubescent or glabrescent, midvein adaxially impressed, puberulent, lateral veins indistinct on both surfaces, base obtuse or broadly cuneate, margin crenate-serrate, teeth aristate, recurved, apex acute, cuspidate. Male flowers not known. Female inflorescences: cymes of order 1 or 2, 1-3-flowered, solitary, axillary on current year’s branchlets; peduncles 7-8 mm; pedicels 1-2 mm; 1-flowered pedicels 7-9 mm, sparsely puberulent, subapically with 2 subulate bracteoles; flowers yellow-green; calyx 4-lobed, lobes broadly ovate, 1-1.5 mm, margin erose; petals 4, suborbicular, ca. 2.5 mm, basally slightly connate, apex obtusely rounded; staminodes 4, shorter than petals, sterile anthers ovoid-sagittate; ovary subglobose, ca. 1 mm in diam., stigma conspicuously 4-lobed. Fruit black, globose, 5-6 mm in diam.; fruiting pedicel 7-9 mm, upward gradually thickening, glabrous, longitudinally striate; bracteoles 2, median, linear-lanceolate; persistent calyx explanate; persistent stigma discoid, thin, flat; pyrenes 4, ellipsoidal, 4.5-5 mm, 3-3.5 mm in diam., abaxially smooth, not sulcate, endocarp leathery. Fl. May, fr. Jul-Nov.

● Evergreen broad-leaved forests, forest margins, thickets, roadsides in valleys; 1400-2300 m. NW and SW Yunnan (Dulong Jiang valley, Tengchong).