核子木 he zi mu

Ilex racemosa Oliver, Hooker’s Icon. Pl. 19: t. 1863. 1889; Perrottetia macrocarpa C. Y. Chang.

Shrubs, 1-4 m tall, dioecious. Branches and branchlets purplish brown, puberulent when young, glabrescent. Stipules ca. 1 mm, membranous, caducous. Petiole 0.5-2 cm; leaf blade long elliptic to narrowly ovate, 5-15 × 1.8-5.5 cm, papery, abaxially puberulent along midvein and secondary veins but ± glabrescent, adaxially glabrous, midvein and secondary veins abaxially elevated and adaxially ± flat, base slightly asymmetric and broadly cuneate to subrounded, margin sharply serrulate, crenulate, or rarely subentire, apex caudate-acuminate, cauda usually slightly curved. Inflorescences thyrses in a raceme, 2-4 cm at anthesis but on female plants to ca. 7 cm in fruit, puberulent. Flowers white, 4- or 5-merous. Sepals and petals similar but petal margin more distinctly fimbriate and slightly wider, triangular, ca. 1 mm on male flowers and ca. 0.5 mm on female flowers, persistent on female plants in fruit, apex acute. Pedicel ca. 1.5 mm at anthesis, puberulent. Male flowers 2-3 mm in diam.; stamens ca. 1.5 mm, inserted on disk margin, exserted from perianth; anthers ellipsoid, ca. 0.5 mm; disk compressed and flat. Female flowers ca. 1 mm in diam.; disk slightly cup-shaped; ovary 2-loculed, with 2 ovules per locule; style ca. 0.5 mm, persistent in fruit, apically 2-lobed. Berry red or dark red, subglobose, 2-3(-5) mm in diam., apex rounded. Seeds 1 or 2 per locule. Fl. May-Sep, fr. Aug-Nov.

● Mixed broad-leaved and deciduous forests, forest margins, woodlands, scrub, valleys, riverbanks; 500-2900 m. Chongqing, Guangxi, Guizhou, SW Hubei, NW Hunan, Sichuan, S and SE Yunnan.