屏边桂 ping bian gui

Trees, 5-10 m tall, 10-25 cm d.b.h. Bark gray. Two-year-old branchlets yellow-brown, terete, ca. 5 mm in diam., sparsely oblong lenticellate; current year branchlets subtetragonous, densely gray puberulent. Buds small, ovoid; bud scales few, broadly ovate, acute, subglabrous or sparsely gray puberulent. Leaves subopposite or opposite; petiole 1-1.5 cm, concave-convex, densely gray sericeous-puberulent when young but glabrous when mature; leaf blade green-white and opaque abaxially, green and shiny adaxially, oblong or oblong-ovate, 12.5-24 × 4.5-8.5(-10.5) cm, thinly leathery, densely gray sericeous-puberulent on both surfaces especially abaxially when young, glabrate on both surfaces when mature, tiny gray puberulent hairs visible under lens abaxially, triplinerved, midrib extending to leaf apex, basal lateral veins arising (2-)5-10(-15) mm above leaf base, obliquely ascendant, evanescent near leaf apex, each with 4-6 additional veins outside, additional veins, midrib, and basal lateral veins very elevated abaxially, plane or slightly impressed adaxially, transverse veins subparallel, indurate, ± conspicuous abaxially and ± visible adaxially, interconnected by veinlets, base broadly cuneate, margin entire, apex acute. Panicle 4.5-6.5(-10.5) cm, always inserted in leaf axils remote from apex of branchlet, branched, apex of branch bearing a 3-5-flowered cyme; peduncle (1-)1.5-3 cm, peduncle and rachis compressed bilaterally, gray sericeous-puberulent. Pedicels slender, 2.5-5 mm, gray sericeous-puberulent. Flowers greenish, ca. 4.5 mm. Perianth sparsely sericeous-puberulent outside but densely so inside; perianth tube obconical, short, ca. 1.5 mm; perianth lobes oblong, subequal, ca. 3 × 1-1.2 mm, obtuse. Fertile stamens 9; filaments villous, those of 3rd whorl each with 2 shortly stalked orbicular-reniform glands, others glandless; anthers of 1st and 2nd whorls a little longer than filaments, ovate-oblong, acute, with introrse cells, those of 3rd whorl as long as filaments, subrectangular, with extrorse cells. Staminodes 3, villous, including stalk ca. 1.5 mm, apex narrowly sagittate-triangular; stalk ca. 0.5 mm. Ovary ovoid, ca. 1 mm, subglabrous; style slender, almost equal to ovary in size; stigma small, inconspicuous. Fruit unknown. Fl. Apr-May.

● Evergreen broad-leaved forests on limestone mountains or in valleys, watersides; 500-1100 m. SW Guangxi, S Guizhou, SE Yunnan.