海南簕茜 hai nan le qian

Basionym: Randia hainanensis Merrill, Lingnan Sci. J. 11: 58. 1932.

Shrubs, 0.5-2.5 m tall; branches slender, compressed to subterete, glabrous, with thorns 4-7 mm. Petiole 2.5-13 mm, pilosulous to glabrous; leaf blade drying papery, brownish green to dark brown, oblong-ovate, elliptic-lanceolate, or lanceolate, 3-8 × 1.5-3 cm, both surfaces glabrous, base cuneate or obtuse to sometimes subrounded, apex acute to acuminate; secondary veins 3-6 pairs, in abaxial axils with foveolate and/or pilosulous domatia; stipules lanceolate to triangular, 2-4 mm, glabrous, acuminate. Inflorescences cymose, 2.5-3 × 3-4 cm, 3- to several flowered, branched to several orders, glabrous; peduncle 4-7 mm; bracts and bracteoles lanceolate to triangular, 2-6 mm, acute; pedicels 2-3 mm. Calyx glabrous; ovary portion obconic, ca. 1 mm; limb 1-3 mm, partially lobed; lobes triangular, 1-1.5 mm, acute. Corolla white or yellow, glabrous outside; tube ca. 7 mm; lobes spatulate, ca. 8 mm, obtuse and often mucronulate. Fruiting pedicels to 9 mm. Berry globose, 5-8 mm in diam., glabrous. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. May-Dec.

● Forests or thickets at streamsides, on hills, or on mountain slopes; 200-600 m. Hainan.

W. C. Chen (in FRPS 71(1): 346. 1999) treated this species as a synonym of Benkara griffithii (as Oxyceros griffithii), and Ridsdale (Reinwardtia 12: 299. 2008) treated it as a synonym of B. forrestii; see comments above under B. forrestii regarding its separation here.