星毛羊奶子 xing mao yang nai zi

Shrubs, deciduous, to 2 m tall. Spines absent or on old branches; young branches and petioles with dense pale lacerate scales overlaid by white stellate hairs, darkening with age. Petiole 2-4 mm; leaf blade abaxially pale gray, adaxially green, broadly ovate or ovate-elliptic, 2-5.5 × 1.5-3 cm, papery, abaxially with persistent, densely overlapping white stellate hairs, adaxially with stellate hairs, ± contiguous, glabrescent, lateral veins 4 or 5 per side of midrib, raised abaxially, impressed adaxially, base rounded or shallowly cordate, margin entire, apex bluntly acute to subacuminate. Flowers often 1-3 together, each in axil of leaf at base of new shoot. Pedicel very short or absent at anthesis; fruiting pedicel 0.5-2 mm. Flowers light white, with sessile silvery stellate hairs/scales, ± contiguous at anthesis. Calyx tube obconic-tubular, faintly 4-ribbed, 5-7 mm, constricted above ovary, abruptly widening below lobes; lobes triangular-ovate or -lanceolate, 3-4.5 mm, apex acuminate. Style erect, glabrous or with sparse stellate hairs. Drupe red when ripe, narrowly ellipsoid or oblong, 1-1.6 cm, densely brown scaly. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. Jul-Aug.

● South-facing slopes, by streams, farmland; 500-1200 m. Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Yunnan.