海南乌口树 hai nan wu kou shu

Tarenna tsangii f. elliptica Chun & F. C. How ex W. C. Ko.

Shrubs or trees, 1-6 m tall; branches flattened, shortly pilosulous, becoming brown or grayish brown with age. Petiole 5-15 mm, pilosulous; leaf blade drying papery and blackish brown, oblong-obovate or lanceolate, 5-26 × 1.5-7 cm, adaxially glabrous, abaxially scabrous and sparsely puberulent to subglabrous with pubescence denser along principal veins, base cuneate, apex acuminate or shortly acuminate; secondary veins 4-7 pairs; stipules triangular, 4-5 mm, acuminate or apiculate. Inflorescence corymbose, 4-7 × ca. 6 cm, many flowered, gray strigillose, pedunculate; pedicels 4-7 mm. Flowers pedicellate. Calyx pilosulous; hypanthium portion cylindrical-urceolate, ca. 1.5 mm; limb ca. 1.5 mm, lobed for up to 1/3. Corolla white, glabrous outside; tube 8-9 mm, pilosulous inside; lobes narrowly oblong, ca. 10 mm. Ovary with 2 ovules per cell. Berry subglobose, 5-7 mm in diam., glabrous; seeds 4. Fl. May-Jul, fr. Jul-Jan.

● Forests on hills; 100-800 m. Guangdong (Maoming), S Guangxi, Hainan.

Plants from Hainan (Lingshui) with leaf blade elliptic or ovate-elliptic and 5-8 × 3-6 cm that fruit in Dec were described as Tarenna tsangii f. elliptica. These features, however, do not clearly distinguish the two groups of plants in Hainan, so this name is here synonymized.