苦槠栲 ku zhu

Quercus sclerophylla Lindley & Paxton, Paxt. Fl. Gard. 1: 59. 1850; Lithocarpus chinensis (Abel) A. Camus; Q. chinensis Abel (1818), not Castanopsis chinensis Hance (1868); Q. cuspidata Thunberg var. sinensis A. de Candolle; Synaedrys sclerophylla (Lindley & Paxton) Koidzumi.

Trees; branches and leaf blades glabrous. Young shoots reddish brown, slightly angulate. Petiole 1.5-2.5 cm; leaf blade oblong, ovate-elliptic, or obovate-elliptic, 7-15 cm, leathery, adaxially silver-gray with age, base rounded to broadly cuneate and usually inaequilateral, margin from middle to apex serrulate or rarely entire, apex acuminate, cuspidate, or shortly caudate; midvein slightly impressed from base to middle and slightly raised from middle to apex; secondary veins 10-15 on each side of midvein, prominent to very slender, evident. Rachis of inflorescences glabrous. Female inflorescence ca. 15 cm. Infructescences 8-15 cm. Cupule globose to subglobose, 1.2-1.5 cm in diam., completely or almost completely enclosing nut, irregularly valved, outside yellowish brown puberulent, wall to 1 mm thick; bracts scalelike, 3- or 4-angled, sometimes only base connate, in annular umbones. Nut 1(-3) per cupule, subglobose, 1-1.4 cm in diam., tomentulose, apex mucronulate; scar basal, 7-9 mm in diam. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Oct-Nov.

* Broad-leaved evergreen forests; 200-1000 m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangxi, NE Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, E Sichuan, Zhejiang

The nuts are used for food.

Castanopsis × kuchugouzhui C. C. Huang & Y. T. Chang (Guihaia 16: 301. 1996) is a hybrid between C. sclerophylla and C. tibetana with a population on Yuelu Shan in Changsha Shi, Hunan. The bracts apically and along the sides of the cupule are 5-8 mm and spinelike, like those of C. tibetana, but among them, as well as the basal bracts, are small, triangular to multiangular, and lamellate bracts like those of C. sclerophylla.