Ilex kwangtungensis var. pilosior Handel-Mazzetti; I. phanerophlebia Merrill; I. shweliensis H. F. Comber.

Shrubs or trees, evergreen, 6-14 m tall. Bark gray-brown, smooth, with light-colored, small, rounded, slightly convex lenticels. Young branchlets black when dry, longitudinally ridged, ferruginous pubescent, puberulent, or nearly glabrous; old branchlets dark gray-brown, terete, pubescent or glabrescent; leaf scars semicircular, slightly raised; terminal buds lanceolate, ca. 6 mm, densely ferruginous pubescent. Stipules caducous; petiole 7-17 mm, adaxially longitudinally sulcate, minutely puberulent; leaf blade brown or deep olivaceous when dry, ovate-elliptic, oblong, or lanceolate, 7-16 × 3-7 cm, subleathery, both surfaces very minutely puberulent (curly villous) when young, densely so on midvein and abaxially, glabrescent or nearly glabrous, midvein impressed adaxially, lateral veins 9-11 pairs, impressed adaxially, raised abaxially, furcating and anastomosing near margin, reticulate veins evident abaxially, indistinct adaxially, base obtuse to rounded, margin minutely serrate or subentire, slightly recurved, apex acuminate. Inflorescences: cymes, solitary, axillary on current year’s branchlets. Male inflorescences: cymes of order 4 or 5, 12-20-flowered, minutely puberulent; peduncles 9-12 mm; secondary axis 3-5 mm; tertiary axis to 2 mm; bracts linear-lanceolate, 5-7 mm; bracteoles basal, ovate-deltoid, densely puberulent; flowers purple or pink, 4- or 5-merous; calyx patelliform, 2.5-3 mm in diam., lobes orbicular, ca. 0.75 mm, puberulent, ciliate; corolla rotate, 7-8 mm in diam., petals oblong, ca. 1.5 mm; rudimentary ovary conical, ca. 1.5 mm, rostellate. Female inflorescences: cymes of order 2 or 3, 3-7-flowered, puberulent; secondary axis 3-4 mm; bracts lanceolate, submedian on secondary axis; pedicels 4-7 mm; flowers light purple or pink; calyx as in male flowers; petals ovate, ca. 2.5 mm; staminodes ca. 3/4 as long as petals, sterile anthers cordate; ovary ovoid, ca. 2 mm in diam., stigma mammilliform, shallowly 4-lobed. Fruit red, black when dry, ellipsoidal, 7-9 mm in diam., smooth, shiny; persistent calyx explanate, pubescent, ciliate; persistent stigma convex, 4-lobed; pyrenes 4, ellipsoidal, ca. 6 mm, ca. 3 mm in diam., abaxially broadly and deeply U-sulcate, laterally smooth, endocarp leathery. Fl. May-Aug, fr. Sep-Dec.

● Evergreen broad-leaved forests, shrub forests on mountain slopes; 300-1200 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Yunnan, Zhejiang.