6. Ixora fulgens Roxburgh, Hort. Bengal. 10. 1814.
亮叶龙船花 liang ye long chuan hua
Pavetta fulgens (Roxburgh) Miquel.
Shrubs; branches glabrous. Leaves opposite; petiole 10-18 mm, glabrous; blade drying dark brown, shiny, oblong-lanceolate, lanceolate, elliptic, or narrowly elliptic, (9-)15-22 × (2-) 3-4 cm, both surfaces glabrous, base cuneate to obtuse, apex acute to long acuminate; secondary veins 8-10 pairs; stipules persistent, shortly united around stem, ovate, 2-3 mm, acute with arista 3-5 mm. Inflorescences terminal, corymbose, 12-17 cm wide, puberulent to hirtellous; peduncle ca. 1 cm; bracts narrowly triangular, 1-1.5 mm; pedicels 0.5-3 mm. Flowers pedicellate. Calyx glabrescent; hypanthium ellipsoid, ca. 1.5 mm; limb lobed for up to ca. 1/2; lobes subtriangular, 0.5-1 mm, obtuse. Corolla orange-yellow to dark red, outside glabrous; tube 25-30 mm, in throat glabrous; lobes ovate, lanceolate, or elliptic, 10-12 mm, acute. Drupe globose, 9-10 mm in diam., glabrescent. Fl. Jul-Sep.
On wet soil in sparse forests. Yunnan [India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, Vietnam].
The application of this name has apparently varied among authors. Bremekamp (J. Bot. (London) 75: 111. 1937) discussed the differing usage, noting that the original description was based on a plant cultivated in the Calcutta Botanical Garden and of incorrectly attributed (in his view) provenance. Plants from the Philippines have petioles as short as 5 mm and corolla lobes up to 40 mm.
W. C. Ko (in FRPS 71(2): 42. 1999) described the branches as sometimes with epidermis strips peeling off; this has not been reported by others nor seen on specimens. Ko also described the secondary leaf veins as 18-25 pairs (p. 43); that count seems to include the often rather well-developed intersecondary veins together with the secondary veins.