老挝檬果樟 lao wo meng guo zhang

Trees, 5-10 m tall. Branchlets brown, robust, terete, glabrous young ones slender, densely pubescent, striate. Leaves opposite or subopposite; petiole 0.8-2 cm, concave-convex, densely pubescent; leaf blade glaucous abaxially, dark brown adaxially, ovate-oblong, 9-19(-22) × (4.5-)5-10 cm, papery, densely pubescent abaxially, glabrous adaxially, trinerved or triplinerved, midrib slender, elevated abaxially, impressed adaxially, lateral veins 3 or 4 pairs, oblique, except basal ones nearly straight and excurrent into upper 1/2 of leaf blade or above, basal lateral veins arising at or up to 6 mm above leaf base, other lateral veins arising from midrib near middle or above, generally alternate, rarely subopposite, very arcuate and evanescent near leaf margin, transverse veins arising from lateral veins and interconnected by veinlets, all veins elevated abaxially, base broadly cuneate to subrounded, margin thickened, plane, or slightly involute, apex shortly acuminate or acuminate. Panicle axillary, narrow and slender, (3-)7-14 cm, densely rusty pubescent, shortly branched; branches opposite or subopposite, transversely oriented, terminal branchlet bearing a 3-7-flowered subcorymbose cyme; bracts and bracteoles minute, subulate, 1-2 mm, rusty pubescent. Pedicels slender, 1.5-2 mm, densely rusty pubescent. Flowers yellowish or yellow, ca. 3 mm in diam. when open. Perianth lobes 6, outer ones minute, triangular, less than 1 mm, pubescent outside, glabrous inside, inner ones large, broadly ovate-triangular, 2-2.5 × ca. 2 mm, slightly thickened, subacute, densely rusty appressed pubescent outside and densely rusty tomentulose inside. Fertile stamens 9; filaments villous, those of 3rd whorl each with 2 subsessile glands, others glandless; anthers ellipsoid-clavate or nearly oblong, always all 4-celled but sometimes all 2-celled, or 2-celled in 1st and 2nd whorls and 4-celled in 3rd whorl; cells introrse in 1st and 2nd whorls and lateral or extrorse in 3rd whorl. Staminodes sagittate-triangular, shortly stalked, hairy. Ovary subglobose, glabrous; style short; stigma inconspicuously 3-lobed. Fruit unknown. Fl. Apr-May.

Secondary mixed forests, open thickets on roadsides; 300-1200 m. SE Yunnan [Laos, N Vietnam].

Records of Caryodaphnopsis baviensis (Lecomte) Airy Shaw (Nothaphoebe baviensis Lecomte) from Yunnan (e.g., in FRPS 31: 84. 1982) are referable to C. laotica.