南方小檗 nan fang xiao bo

Shrubs, evergreen, ca. 2 m tall. Stems pale yellow, terete, glabrous; branches deep red, becoming red-brown, and soon yellow-brown; shoots reddish; internodes 1-2 cm; spines discolorous, pale yellow, 2-3.5 cm, slender. Leaves adaxially slightly shiny, oblanceolate, 2.5-4.5 × 0.7-1.3 cm, slightly stiffly leathery, abaxially white pruinose, with veins more distinct, adaxially veins branched, scarcely subreticulate, base attenuate, margin entire, sometimes toward apex 3-5-spinose-serrate on each side, apex acute. Inflorescence a panicle, 6-12-flowered, 3-5 cm; bracts ca. 1 mm. Pedicels 7-14 mm. Ovules 2 or 3. Berry black, oblong, 9-10 × 5-6 mm, excluding a very short but distinct style, gray pruinose. Fl. May, fr. Oct.

● China (without precise locality).

This species is known only from the type (at BM), a cultivated plant that once grew at the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden in Wisley, Surrey, United Kingdom, reputedly from Kerr 39, collected in some unspecified part of China in 1935.