壶壳柯 hu qiao ke

Trees ca. 15 m tall; branchlets, petioles, and rachis of inflorescences covered with early glabrescent, short hairs. Branchlets blackish when dry, inconspicuously lenticellate. Petiole 1-1.5 cm; leaf blade elliptic, narrowly elliptic, oblong, or lanceolate, 9-15 × 1.5-4 cm, subleathery, base cuneate, margin entire, apex acuminate; secondary veins 10-17 on each side of midvein; tertiary veins abaxially not visible. Infructescences ca. 10 cm; rachis ca. 1.2 cm thick; immature cupules in clusters of ca. 3, oblong when young, apically flat. Cupule enclosing all of nut or occasionally only 1/2, wall ca. 3 mm thick; bracts linear to subulate, ± curved. Nut depressed globose; scar concave but center ± convex. Fr. Oct-Nov.

Sparse forests in dry places, broad-leaved evergreen forests; 1900-2000 m. S and SE Yunnan [Laos, Myanmar, N and NE Vietnam].

Lower Taxa

• Lithocarpus echinophorus var. bidoupensis A. Camus
• Lithocarpus echinophorus var. chapensis A. Camus
• Lithocarpus echinophorus var. echinophorus