Meliosma lepidota Blume subsp. squamulata (Hance) Beusekom; M. lutchuensis Koidzumi.

Trees small, to 15 m tall, evergreen. Young branches and buds brownish pubescent, glabrous when old. Leaves simple; petiole 2.5-6.5 cm, rarely to 10 cm, slender; leaf blade abaxially pale, adaxially nitid, elliptic or ovate, 5-12 × 1.5-5 cm, thinly leathery, abaxially densely brown squamellate, adaxially glabrous, lateral veins 3-5 pairs, ascending, anastomosing, base cuneate, margin entire, apex caudate-acuminate or with an obtuse tip. Panicle terminal or axillary, solitary or 2-8-clustered, 7-20 cm, axes, branches, pedicels, and bracts densely brownish pubescent. Pedicel to 3 mm, sometimes flowers sessile. Flowers ca. 3 mm in diam. Sepals 5, ovate, ciliate. Petals white: 3 outer ones suborbicular, ca. 2.5 mm in diam.; 2 inner ones equal to filaments, 2-parted at an obtuse angle; lobes narrow and acute. Pistil ca. 2 mm; style equal to ovary; ovary glabrous. Drupe globose, 4-6 mm in diam.; endocarp globose, slightly oblique, convex, with conspicuous, scattered netlike strips, midrib projecting. Fl. summer, fr. Sep-Oct.

Evergreen broad-leaved forests; below 1800 m. S Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, S Hunan, S Jiangxi, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Japan].