野黄桂 ye huang gui

Cinnamomum pauciflorum Chun ex Hung T. Chang (1959), not Nees (1831).

Small trees, less than 6 m tall. Bark gray-brown, cassia-scented. Branchlets flexuous; 2-year-old branchlets brown and densely denticulate; 1-year-old branchlets angled; current year branchlets black when dry, very glabrous. Bud fusiform; bud scales crustaceous, ca. 6 mm, acute, shortly sericeous outside. Leaves always subopposite; leaf blade opaque and waxy but not glaucous when fresh abaxially, green and shiny adaxially, lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, 5-10(-20) × 1.5-3(-6) cm, thickly leathery, pulverulent-puberulent when young but glabrous when mature abaxially, glabrous adaxially, triplinerved, midrib and basal lateral veins elevated on both surfaces, basal lateral veins arising 2-18 mm above leaf base, excurrent into upper 1/3 along leaf margin and almost reaching leaf apex, very rarely with basal additional veins near leaf margin, transverse veins numerous, arcuate, delicate adaxially and barely elevated abaxially or inconspicuous on both surfaces, base broadly cuneate to subrounded, margin thick and entire, apex caudate-acuminate. Inflorescence corymbose, 2-5-flowered, usually 3-4 cm, always remote, or even 1- or 2-flowered on base of current year branchlet, branchlet not elongate; peduncle usually 1.5-2.5 cm, slender, black when dry, glabrous; bracts and bracteoles ca. 2 mm, caducous. Pedicels 5-10(-20) mm, straight, gradually dilated toward apex, black when dry. Flowers yellow or white, ca. 4(-8) mm. Perianth very glabrous outside, sericeous inside, papillate-ciliolate on margin; perianth tube very short, 1.5(-2) mm; perianth lobes 6, obovate, subequal, 2-5(-6) × 1.7(-2.2) mm, acute. Fertile stamens 9; filaments of 1st and 2nd whorls broad and complanate, pilose at base, glandless, but those of 3rd whorl slender, pilose, each with 2 discoid glands near middle; anthers of 1st and 2nd whorls ovate-oblong, glabrous, but those of 3rd whorl oblong, ca. 1/2 as long as those of 1st and 2nd whorls, sparsely villous. Staminodes 3, triangular, ca. 1.7 mm, stalked; stalk villous. Ovary ovoid; style twice as long as ovary, glabrous; stigma discoid, irregularly lobed. Fruit ovoid, up to 1(-1.2) × 6(-7) mm, apiculate, glabrous; perianth cup in fruit obovoid, ca. 6 × 8 mm, dentate, teeth truncate at apex. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. Jul-Aug.

● Evergreen broad-leaved forests or bamboo forests on mountain slopes; 500-1600 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Hubei, W Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan.

The bark is sweet and bitter and is used as a medicine similar to cassia bark.