大沙叶 da sha ye

?Pavetta sinica Miquel.

Shrubs, 1-3 m tall; branches compressed, puberulent to glabrous. Petiole 5-20 mm, glabrous to sparsely pilosulous; leaf blade drying membranous, elliptic-oblong to obovate-oblong, 9-18 × 3-3.5 cm, usually with bacterial nodules, adaxially glabrous and somewhat shiny, abaxially sparsely to densely villosulous, base cuneate to acute, apex acuminate; secondary veins 6-8 pairs; stipules broadly ovate-triangular, 2-12 mm, pilosulous to glabrous, acute to obtuse. Inflorescence terminal, 9-11 × ca. 15 cm, pilosulous to glabrescent; peduncle 2.5-4 cm; pedicels 10-12 mm. Flowers pedicellate. Calyx with hypanthium portion ellipsoid, ca. 1 mm, densely pilosulous; limb ca. 1 mm, sparsely pilosulous to glabrescent, lobed for up to 1/2. Corolla white, outside glabrous; tube 10-18 mm, bearded in throat; lobes narrowly oblong, 3-5 mm, obtuse. Style 25-30 mm. Drupe globose, 6-7 mm in diam., glabrous, calyx limb persistent. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Oct-Nov.

Sparse forests at low elevations. Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan [Vietnam].

Plants with calyx tube glabrous from Guangxi have been called Pavetta arenosa f. glabrituba Chun & F. C. How ex W. C. Ko (Fl. Hainan. 3: 583. 1974). This may be best synonymized here, pending further study.

In his revision of Pavetta Bremekamp (Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 37: 104. 1934) described P. hongkongensis for the common Chinese plants and considered P. arenosa a dubious name that he tentatively referred to Tarenna, but later (Bremekamp, Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 47: 12-28. 1939) he reported that Merrill had differed with his conclusion, had examined the type of P. arenosa, and had sent him information that persuaded him to apply this latter name to Chinese plants. The protologue provided very limited information, which was significantly expanded by Bremekamp, thus the annotation here of this as an emended description. Bremekamp here also stated, without citing any individual specimens or contrasting the species, that both P. arenosa and P. hongkongensis are found commonly in China. W. C. Ko (in FRPS 71(2): 26. 1999) separated these based on the color of their flowering branches: green or almost green in P. hongkongensis vs. not green in P. arenosa; however, this is a character that Rout and Deb (Bull. Bot. Surv. India 41: 1-182. 1999) tested empirically and found to be variable within all Indian species of Pavetta and, thus, of questionable use there and elsewhere.

W. C. Ko (loc. cit.: 28) cited the name Pavetta sinica as a synonym of P. arenosa, but the source for this synonymy is unknown to us. Bremekamp specifically excluded this name from synonymy in his circumscription of P. arenosa, though apparently Merrill did synonymize it here (Lingnan Sci. J. 15: 17. 1936). Bremekamp treated P. sinica as a species distinct from P. arenosa and P. hongkongensis and considered it most closely related to P. tomentosa. Bremekamp saw its type and described the corolla tube as 17 mm, which does not agree with the descriptions presented by W. C. Ko (loc. cit.: 27-28) for either P. arenosa or P. hongkongensis. However, the specimens cited for P. arenosa by Bremekamp (loc. cit. 1939) have corolla tubes 10-18 mm, so Bremekamp’s description of P. sinica is easily included in his circumscription of P. arenosa.