簇叶新木姜子 cu ye xin mu jiang zi

Litsea confertifolia Hemsley, J. Linn. Soc., Bot. 26: 379. 1891; Actinodaphne confertifolia (Hemsley) Gamble; Fiwa confertifolia (Hemsley) Nakai.

Small trees, 3-7 m tall. Young branchlets and petioles covered with gray-brown pubescence and becoming glabrous. Leaves conferted, subverticillate; petiole 6-7 mm; leaf blade oblong or lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, 5-12 × 1.2-3.5 cm, glaucous abaxially and pubescent when young, shiny and glabrous adaxially, pinninerved or sometimes subtriplinerved, lateral veins 4-6 pairs, base cuneate, apex acuminate. Umbels often 3-5-fascicled in leaf axils, subsessile, 4-flowered. Pedicel ca. 2 mm, sericeous-villous. Perianth segments 4, broadly ovate. Male flowers: fertile stamens 6; filaments hirsute at base, of 3rd whorls each with 2 large stipitate glands at base; rudimentary pistil glabrous. Fruit ovoid or ellipsoid, 8-12 × 5-6 mm, seated on flat discoid perianth tube, ca. 2 mm in diam.; fruiting pedicel 4-8 mm. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Sep-Oct.

● Watersides, thickets, dense forests; 400-2000 m. N Guangdong, NE Guangxi, Guizhou, SW Henan, Hubei, S Hunan, W Jiangxi, SE Shaanxi, Sichuan.

Leaf size in this species is extremely variable. The plants of Shaanxi and Henan usually have smaller and narrower leaves, while in Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, and Sichuan the leaves are broader and larger.

The wood is used for furniture. The seeds are used for their oil.