三股筋香 san gu jin xiang

Evergreen trees, 3-10 m tall, 4-25 cm d.b.h. Bark brown. Branchlets greenish or greenish and slightly red, cylindric, longitudinally striate, distinctly lenticellate; young branchlets densely sericeous, later glabrous. Terminal bud ovate; bud scales brown, densely sericeous pubescent. Leaves alternate; petiole 7-15 mm; leaf blade pale abaxially, green adaxially, ovate, narrowly ovate, or lanceolate, 7-11 × 2.5-4.5 cm, papery, densely coadnate white or yellow sericeous-pubescent on both surfaces when young, or more laxly adaxially, later glabrous or laxly gray or black pubescent, trinerved or triplinerved, veins convex and distinct, base acute or subrounded, apex caudate-acuminate, up to 3.5 cm, and straight or falcate. Male umbel axillary, 3-10-flowered, peduncles 2-3 mm, involucral bracts early deciduous; female umbel axillary, 4-12-flowered, peduncles ca. 2 mm, involucral bracts early deciduous. Male flowers yellow; pedicels 3-4 mm, gray pubescent; tepals 6, ovate-lanceolate, 3.5-4 mm; filaments laxly pubescent, 2-glandular near base in 3rd whorl; glands rounded-reniform, shortly stipitate; reduced pistil ca. 4 mm; style gray pubescent. Female flowers white, yellow, or yellow-green; pedicels 4-5 mm, gray pubescent; staminodes 9, ca. 2.5 mm, sometimes petaloid in 3rd whorl, 2-glandular at filament base; glands rounded-reniform, subsessile; ovary ellipsoid, ca. 2 mm, equal to length of style, gray pubescent. Fruits ellipsoid, 1-1.4 cm × 7-10 mm, red becoming black at maturity; stipes 1-1.5 cm, pubescent; hypocarpium ca. 2 mm in diam. Fl. Feb-Mar, fr. Jun-Sep.

Sparse forests on mountains, evergreen broad-leaved forests on mountain slopes; 1100-2500(-3000) m. Guangxi, W Guizhou, Yunnan [India, Myanmar, Vietnam].

Lower Taxa

• Lindera thomsonii var. thomsonii
• Lindera thomsonii var. velutina (Forrest) L. C. Wang