蚁花 yi hua

Shrubs or small trees, 2.5-15 m tall. Branchlets slender, sparsely pubescent or glabrous. Petiole 3-7 mm; leaf blade oblong, narrowly oblong, or lanceolate, 5.5-19 × 2.2-7.5 cm, ± thickly papery to thinly leathery, sparsely pubescent or glabrous, midvein abaxially sometimes hispid and adaxially flat to slightly sunken, secondary veins 7-11 on each side of midvein, base cuneate, apex acute to shortly acuminate. Inflorescences axillary, cymose, 6-flowered or more, densely pubescent; peduncle 4-15 mm. Pedicel 0.9-1.2 cm, bracteolate near base. Sepals triangular to broadly ovate, 2-2.5 × ca. 2 mm, outside densely puberulent. Outer petals sepal-like, ovate, 3-4 × 3-4 mm, outside greenish white, slightly warty, and pubescent; inner petals 13-16 × 2-4 mm, slightly warty, sparsely hairy, basally clawed, limb strongly recurved and thickened. Stamens 9 in a single whorl or 12(or 14) in 2 whorls; connectives apically rounded. Carpels 9-18, sparsely hairy, glabrescent; ovules 2-6 per carpel; stigmas capitate. Fruiting pedicel 4-9 mm, 1.5-2 mm thick; monocarp stipes 6-10 × ca. 1 mm; monocarps ca. 10, globose, 1-1.3(-2) cm in diam., glabrous. Seeds 1 or 2 per monocarp.

● Forested slopes; 400-1200 m. Hainan, S Yunnan.

This species was originally included within Orophea creaghii (Ridley) Leonardía & Kessler (Mezzettiopsis creaghii Ridley), but Leonardía and Kessler believe that the Chinese material originally identified as that species (Merrill, Lingnan Sci. J. 14: 5. 1935) is better treated as a distinct species endemic to China. Orophea creaghii s.s. differs by the leaves drying dark reddish brown and with shortly caudate tips and is found in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.