凹叶冬青 ao ye dong qing

Ilex memecylifolia Champion ex Bentham var. nummularia Champion ex Bentham.

Shrubs or trees, evergreen, 8-13(-15) m tall; bark gray-white or gray-brown. Young branchlets purple-brown, longitudinally ridged and sulcate, puberulent; older branchlets brown, subterete, slightly puberulent or glabrescent, longitudinally fissured; lenticels absent; terminal buds conical, puberulent, apically acute. Stipules persistent, deltoid, ca. 1 mm; petiole 4-5 mm, sulcate, sparsely minutely puberulent; leaf blade abaxially greenish, adaxially green, shiny, ovate or obovate, rarely obovate-elliptic, 2-4 × 1.5-2.5 cm, leathery, abaxially deeply colored punctate, both surfaces glabrous, midvein slightly raised or flat on both surfaces, lateral veins 8-10 pairs, evident abaxially, obscure adaxially, reticulate veins sometimes evident abaxially, base obtuse, margin entire, apex retuse or emarginate, or shortly and abruptly acuminate. Inflorescences: cymes, fasciculate, axillary on first to second year’s branchlets. Male inflorescences: cymes of order 1 or 2, 1-3-flowered, puberulent; bracts deltoid, puberulent; peduncles 1-1.5 mm; pedicels 0.5-1 mm; bracteoles 1, basal, or absent; flowers white, 4-merous; calyx patelliform, ca. 1.8 mm in diam., puberulent, deeply 4-lobed, lobes orbicular, ciliate; corolla rotate, ca. 4 mm in diam., petals oblong-ovate, basally slightly connate; stamens shorter than petals, anthers oblong; rudimentary ovary pulvinate, rostellate. Female flowers not known. Infructescences: 1-fruited cymes, few fascicled; fruiting pedicels 1.5-2 mm, puberulent, bracteoles 2, basal or median. Fruit red, compressed globose, 3-4 mm in diam.; persistent calyx explanate, subquadrangular, puberulent, 4-lobed, lobes ovate, ciliate; persistent stigma discoid, convex; pyrenes 4, ellipsoidal-obovoid, ca. 3.5 mm, ca. 1.5 mm in diam., abaxially slightly raised 3-striate, not sulcate, smooth, endocarp leathery. Fl. Jun-Jul, fr. Aug-Nov.

● Dense forests, valleys; 600-1900 m. Fujian (Liancheng), Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, S Hunan (Yizhang), Jiangxi.