太平莓 tai ping mei

Shrubs 40–100 cm tall, evergreen. Branchlets brown or reddish brown, terete, slender, slightly arching, soft hairy, glabrate in age, with sparse, minute prickles. Leaves simple; petiole 4–8 cm, villous when young, glabrescent, with sparse, minute prickles; stipules brownish, oblong, to 2.5 cm, villous, broader and incised-laciniate near apex, lobes lanceolate; blade broadly ovate to narrowly ovate, 8–16 × 5–13 cm, palmately 5-veined, lateral veins 2 or 3 pairs, brownish, distinctly raised abaxially, impressed adaxially, leathery, abaxially densely gray tomentose, adaxially glabrous, base cordate, margin inconspicuously lobed, irregularly abruptly pointed sharply serrate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences terminal, short racemes or corymbose, 3–6-flowered, or flowers solitary in leaf axils; rachis and pedicels densely soft hairy; bracts oblong, to 1.8 cm, villous, apex lobed; lobes lanceolate. Pedicel 1–3 cm. Flowers 1.5–2 cm in diam. Calyx abaxially soft hairy; sepals reflexed in fruit, rarely erect, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 0.9–1.4 cm × 5–8 mm, apex acuminate; outer sepals apically laciniate, inner sepals entire. Petals white, suborbicular, slightly longer than or nearly as long as sepals, base shortly clawed, apex slightly incised. Stamens shorter than petals; filaments broad, flat; anthers villous. Pistils numerous, somewhat longer than stamens. Aggregate fruit red, globose, 1.2–1.6 cm in diam., glabrous; pyrenes rugose. Fl. Jun–Jul, fr. Aug–Sep.

Roadsides, mixed forests, mountainous areas; 300--1000 m. Anhui, Fujian, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Zhejiang.