城口小檗 cheng kou xiao bo

Shrubs, semi-evergreen, 0.5-1 m tall. Branches gray-brown, sulcate, sparsely black verruculose; shoots pale yellow, glabrous; spines 3(or 5)-fid, concolorous, 5-12 mm, slender. Petiole usually red, 2-5 mm; leaf blade abaxially pale yellow-green, adaxially deep green, elliptic-obovate or obovate, 2-5 × 1.2-2.2 cm, papery, both surfaces glabrous, abaxially not pruinose, midvein conspicuously raised, adaxially with complanate midvein, both surfaces with markedly raised reticulate veins, base cuneate, margin entire or inconspicuously 3-8(-20)-spinose-serrate on each side, sometimes conspicuously 10-20-spinose-serrate on each side, apex rounded. Flowers solitary. Pedicels 1.5-2.5 cm, stout, glabrous, tip bent. Sepals in 2 whorls; outer sepals elliptic, 7.5-8 × 4.5-5 mm; inner sepals broadly obovate-elliptic, 7-7.2 × ca. 5 mm. Petals obovate, ca. 6 × 4 mm, base clawed and with separate elliptic glands, apex narrowly incised with acute lobes. Stamens ca. 3 mm; anther connective prolonged, rounded. Ovules 11. Fruit stalk curved at apex, stout, glabrous. Berry red, subglobose, 1.3-1.5 × 1.2-1.3 cm, slightly pruinose, style not persistent; seeds 6 or 7. Fl. Jun, fr. Aug-Sep.

● Thickets on mountain slopes, weedy places, rock crevices; 2200-2500 m. Sichuan.