大果枣 da guo zao

Trees, to 15 m tall, spinose. Young branches yellow-green, glabrous; branchlets purple-red, longitudinally striate. Stipular spines 2, both erect, or one erect and one recurved, yellow or turning purple-red, 8-25 mm; petiole 6-9 mm, glabrous; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, ovate-lanceolate, 7.5-15 × 3.5-7 cm, papery, both surfaces glabrous, 3- or 5-veined from base, veins prominent abaxially, impressed adaxially, base oblique, asymmetric, subrounded, margin crenate-serrate, apex acuminate. Flowers yellow-green, small, usually few or 10 crowded in axillary dichasia; peduncles short, not longer than 2 mm, ferruginous tomentose. Pedicel 3-4 mm. Sepals ovate-triangular, sparsely hairy, apex acute or acuminate. Petals obovoid-orbicular, shortly clawed, apex emarginate. Stamens ca. as long as petals. Disk 5-lobed, centrally concave. Ovary slightly immersed in disk; style deeply 2-branched. Drupe yellow-brown, often spotted, globose or subobovoid-globose, large, 2.4-3.5 cm, 1.8-3 cm in diam., ± rugose when dry, base concave, apex with persistent style; fruiting pedicel 5-7 mm, glabrous; fleshy mesocarp soon becoming corky; endocarp thick, cartilaginous; stone ca. 6 mm in diam., 2-loculed, with 1 or 2 seeds. Seeds compressed, ca. 1.2 × 1 cm. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. Jun-Aug.

● Thickets and forest margins along riverbanks; 1900-2000 m. Yunnan.