滇刺枣 dian ci zao

Paliurus mairei H. Léveillé; Rhamnus jujuba Linnaeus; Ziziphus jujuba (Linnaeus) Lamarck (1789), not Miller (1768); Z. mairei (H. Léveillé) Browicz & Lauener (1967), not Dode (1909).

Trees or shrubs, evergreen, to 15 m tall. Young branches densely yellow-gray tomentose; branchlets pilose; old branches purple-red. Stipular spines 2, one oblique and hooklike recurved; petiole 5-13 mm, densely gray-yellow tomentose; leaf blade adaxially dark green, shiny, ovate or oblong-elliptic, rarely subrounded, 2.5-6 × 1.5-4.5 cm, papery to thickly papery, abaxially yellow or gray-white tomentose, adaxially glabrous, 3-veined from base, veins conspicuously reticulate abaxially, impressed or ± prominent adaxially, base subrounded, slightly oblique, margin serrulate, apex rounded, rarely acute. Flowers green-yellow, few to 10 in subsessile or shortly pedunculate, axillary dichotomous cymes. Pedicel 2-4 mm, gray-yellow tomentose. Sepals ovate-triangular, abaxially hairy, apex acute. Petals oblong-spatulate, clawed at base. Stamens subequaling petals. Disk thick, fleshy, 10-lobed, concave at middle. Ovary globose, glabrous; style 2-fid or branched to half. Drupe orange or red, turning black at maturity, oblong or globose, 1-1.2 cm, ca. l cm in diam., with persistent tube at base; fruiting pedicel 5-8 mm, pilose, 2-loculed, 1- or 2-seeded; mesocarp corky; endocarp thick, thickly leathery. Seeds red-brown, broad and compressed, 6-7 × 5-6 mm, shiny. Fl. Aug-Nov, fr. Sep-Dec. 2n = 24.

Humid forests, thickets along riverbanks, hills, slopes; below 1800 m. Native in Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan, and Yunnan; cultivated in Fujian and Taiwan [Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; Africa, Australia].

The hard, fine wood is used in making furniture; the bark is used medicinally. The leaves contain tannin used for producing tannin extract. This is an important host tree for the parasitic scale insect, Laccifer lacca (lac insect).