拉加柳 la jia liu

Shrubs to 3 m tall. One-year-old branchlets russet, shiny or slightly downy. Buds purplish red, long ovoid, downy. Petiole 2-4 mm; leaf blade elliptic or obovate, 1.5-3 × 0.8-1.2 cm, abaxially sparsely grayish white villous, becoming glabrous or only slightly pilose along midvein, pale, adaxially dull green, glabrous, base rounded-cuneate, margin serrulate, rarely entire, apex acute; lateral veins (8-)10-12 on each side of midvein. Flowering coetaneous. Male catkin grayish white, oblong to shortly cylindric, 1-1.5 (-2) cm × ca. 8 mm; peduncle very short, without leaflets or only with 1 scalelike leaflet; bracts obovate-oblong, ca. 1/2 as long as filaments, abaxially villous, adaxially pubescent, yellowish green or reddish at apex. Male flower: glands 2; stamens 2; filaments free, basally downy; anthers yellow, ovoid. Female catkin cylindric, 1.5-2.5 × 0.8-1 cm, ca. 3.5 cm in fruit; peduncle short, with 2 or 3 often caducous leaflets, bracts elliptic, ca. as long as ovary, abaxially villous (usually glabrescent in fruit), adaxially subglabrous. Female flower: adaxial gland long ovate, abaxial gland sometimes present; ovary conical-ovoid, ca. 2 mm, downy, sessile or subsessile; style conspicuous, 2-lobed; stigma 2-cleft. Capsule ovoid, ca. 5 mm. Fl. May, fr. Jul.

* Mountain slopes, Picea forests; circa 3700 m. Gansu, E Qinghai (Tongde Xian)