华南青皮木 hua nan qing pi mu

Schoepfiopsis chinensis (Gardner & Champion) Miers.

Shrubs or trees, 1-6 m tall, glabrous. Older stems grayish brown, slightly striate; branchlets often deciduous, produced in succession from short shoots, bark purplish brown with white lenticels, contrasting sharply with much thicker older stems, with rounded deciduous bud scales at base. Petiole 3-6 mm; leaf blade oblong-lanceolate to elliptic, 5-10 × 1.5-4 cm, papery to ± leathery, base cuneate and unequal, apex acuminate; veins 3-5 on each side of midvein. Inflorescences 0.5-1.5 cm, (1 or)2-4-flowered; peduncle base without bud scales. Pedicel absent; bracteole 1, at base of flower. Calyx obcampanulate. Corolla pink, urceolate; tube 6-10 mm, throat narrower; lobes ovate, 2-4 mm, apex acute. Stamens (4 or)5; filaments coherent to corolla tube; anthers free, slightly exserted from corolla throat. Disk epigynous, pulvinate. Style 5-9 mm, shorter than or as long as corolla tube. Drupe red to purple, blackish in age, ellipsoid, 1-1.5 × 0.5-0.6 cm. Fl. Feb-Apr, fr. Apr-Jul.

* Forests, mountain slopes, valleys; below 100 to 2000 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, S Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Yunnan.

Fruiting material of Schoepfia chinensis cannot be reliably distinguished from that of S. jasminodora, although the often very short inflorescence is distinctive. Flowering material can usually be readily distinguished by the distinctly urn-shaped, often pinkish corolla in contrast to the tubular to slightly funnel-shaped, often yellowish corolla of S. jasminodora. The much rarer S. griffithii is also very easily confused with S. chinensis, especially as it shares the same corolla form, but again the corolla is white or pale yellow rather than pink and the plants have rather smaller flowers and fruit.