泡吹叶花楸 pao chui ye hua qiu

Aria meliosmifolia (Rehder) H. Ohashi & H. Iketani; Micromeles meliosmifolia (Rehder) Kovanda & Challice; Pyrus meliosmifolia (Rehder) Bean.

Trees to 10 m tall. Branchlets reddish brown or purplish brown when young, blackish brown when old, puberulent, soon glabrescent, terete, with few indistinct lenticels; buds ovoid or narrowly ovoid, 6–8 mm, apex acute; scales several, reddish brown, glabrous. Leaves simple; petiole 5–8 mm, glabrous or slightly puberulous; leaf blade grayish green abaxially, light green adaxially, narrowly elliptic-ovate to elliptic-obovate, 9–13(–18) × 3–6(–8) cm, lateral veins 16–24 pairs, nearly parallel and terminating in marginal teeth, raised abaxially and impressed adaxially, abaxially lanuginose in vein axils, subglabrous when old, adaxially glabrous, base cuneate, margin doubly serrate, apex acuminate, sometimes acute. Compound corymbs terminal, 4–8 cm and nearly as broad, numerous flowered; rachis and pedicels yellow pubescent, glabrous in fruit. Pedicel 6–12 mm. Flowers to 1 cm in diam. Hypanthium campanulate, yellow pubescent. Sepals triangular-ovate, 2–4 mm, apex acute. Petals white, ovate, 3–4 mm and ca. as broad, apex obtuse. Stamens 20, ca. as long as petals. Styles 3(or 4), nearly as long as stamens, glabrous, connate basally. Fruit brown, subglobose or ovoid, 1–1.4 cm in diam., glabrous when old, with many rusty small lenticels, with an annular scar at apex, 3(or 4)-loculed; seeds brown, broadly ovoid or obovoid, 4–4.5 mm, compressed. Fl. Apr–May, fr. Aug–Sep.

Mountain valleys, forests; 1400--2800 m. NE Guangxi, W Sichuan, NW Yunnan.

One of us (Spongberg) notes that this species appears to merge with Sorbus corymbifera (Miquel) N. T. Kh’ep & G. P. Yakovlev. The variation of the two taxa is continuous.