风车子 feng che zi

Combretum kwangsiense H. L. Li.

Lianas to 6 m tall. Bark grayish, young parts with scales. Branchlets together with petioles densely brownish yellow tomentose and orange-yellow scaly, glabrous when old. Leaves opposite or subopposite; petiole 7-15 mm; leaf blade usually elliptic or oblong-elliptic, 10-20(-25) × 4-11 cm, abaxially glabrous except for tufts of coarse hairs in axils of lateral veins, sometimes also coarsely hairy on veins, yellow-brown or orange-yellow scaly and green verruculose, adaxially glabrous and densely white verruculose, base cuneate, rarely obtuse-rounded, apex acuminate; lateral veins in 6-10 pairs. Inflorescences terminal and axillary, simple and compound, narrowly cylindric spikes 5-15 cm, often grouped at branchlet apex and forming a large panicle; axes brownish yellow tomentose and orange-yellow scaly; bracts persistent at anthesis, linear, ca. 1 mm. Flowers fragrant. Calyx tube in middle part funnelform, distally cupular, 5-7 mm, abaxially coarsely hairy and glossy yellow scaly, adaxially with a ring of dense, coarse hairs not or only slightly exserted; lobes 4, erect, deltoid or broadly triangular, 1-1.5 mm, apex acuminate. Petals 4, white or yellowish white, 1.5-2 mm, clawed; limb oblong-obovate, apex obtuse-rounded or slightly mucronate. Stamens 8, exserted, 4-4.5 mm. Fruit red or purple-red when mature, globose or oblate, 4-winged, 1.5-2.5 × 1.5-2.7 cm, glabrous, yellow or orange-yellow scaly. Fl. May-Sep, fr. Aug-Dec.

● Forests, woodlands, open thickets, valleys, river- and streamsides, swamps, plains; near sea level to 800 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, S Hunan (Yizhang), S Jiangxi (Longnan).

Plants of Combretum alfredii with simple spikes in the leaf axils may be difficult to separate from C. wallichii. The name C. kwangsiense was given to plants from Guangxi with fruit at the small end of the range of variation.

The fruit is edible.