炉灰柯 lu hui ke

Trees. Branches glabrous; branchlets of current year sulcate. Petiole 1-1.5 cm; leaf blade oblong to lanceolate, 8-11 × 2-3.5 cm, thickly leathery, abaxially grayish green, dark grayish brown when dry, and with waxy scalelike trichomes, adaxially glabrous, base cuneate, margin entire or obscurely undulate near apex and ± recurved, apex narrowly acuminate; secondary veins 11-15 on each side of midvein, adaxially ± impressed; tertiary veins abaxially not visible. Infructescences 8-10 cm; rachis 6-8 mm thick, basally lenticellate; lenticels brown; cupules in clusters of ca. 3 but only 1 developed. Cupule cupular, 1.6-2.2 × 2-2.5 cm, broadest slightly from middle to apex, enclosing ca. 2/3 of nut, basally narrowed, wall 2-4 mm thick; basal bracts fused to wall except for a subulate tip, triangular, with lax dark grayish brown waxy scalelike trichomes, apical ones smaller, imbricate. Nut broadly conical, 1.6-2 × 1.6-2 cm, densely covered with tawny appressed minute hairs, wall 1-1.5 mm; scar covering ca. 1/3 of nut, convex but margin impressed. Fr. Nov.

* Broad-leaved evergreen forests; circa 1000 m. SW Guangxi, SE Yunnan