聚花桂 ju hua gui

Small trees, up to 8 m tall, to 32 cm d.b.h. Bark gray-black, smooth, with cinnamic aldehyde flavor. Old branchlets terete, robust, tea-brown or red-brown when dry, many lenticellate, glabrous, young ones striate, glabrous. Leaves alternate or subopposite; petiole 1-2 cm, plano-convex, glabrous; leaf blade gray-green and opaque abaxially, shiny green adaxially, ovate to broadly ovate, 9-14 × 3.5-7.5 cm, leathery, white sericeous-pubescent when young but eventually glabrate abaxially, glabrous adaxially, triplinerved, midrib extending to leaf apex, midrib and basal lateral veins elevated abaxially, conspicuous adaxially, all yellowish when dry, basal lateral veins subopposite, adaxially arising 5-10 mm from leaf base, arcuate, evanescent at leaf apex, sometimes with 3-5 additional veins outside, additional veins arcuate and interconnected within leaf margin, transverse veins numerous, arcuate, slender, ± conspicuous abaxially, base broadly cuneate to subrounded, margin cartilaginous and involute, apex acuminate, acumen obtuse. Panicles axillary and terminal, many flowered, composed of shortly pedunculate or sessile 2-11-flowered cymes, axillary ones 4-8.5 cm, shortly branched at lower part or subracemose, terminal ones elongate, up to 12 mm, branched almost from base and upward, lowest branches up to 4 cm, other branches gradually shorter upward; peduncles very short, 0.5-1.5 cm, peduncle and rachis densely finely gray puberulent. Pedicels short, 2-4 mm, densely finely gray puberulent. Flowers yellow-green, up to 7 mm. Perianth sericeous-puberulent outside and inside; perianth tube obconical, ca. 1.5 mm; perianth lobes ovate or oblong-ovate, acute, outer ones ca. 5 × 3.8 mm, inner ones ca. 5 × 3 mm. Fertile stamens 9, ca. 3.6 mm (of 1st and 2nd whorls) or ca. 4 mm (of 3rd whorl); filaments of 1st and 2nd whorls slender, up to 2 mm, glandless, those of 3rd whorl robust, complanate, each with 2 shortly stalked reniform glands; anthers of 1st and 2nd whorls oblong-ovate, ca. 1.6 mm, obtuse, each with 4 introrse cells, those of 3rd whorl oblong, ca. 1.8 mm, each with 4 extrorse cells. Staminodes 3, triangular-sagittate, including short stalk ca. 2.5 mm. Ovary ovoid, ca. 1.5 mm, glabrous; style robust, ca. 3.5 mm; stigma dilated, capitate. Fruit unknown. Fl. May.

● Evergreen broad-leaved forests on mountain slopes, valley sides; 1800-2800 m. SE Xizang, NW Yunnan.