木瓜榄 mu gua lan

Shrubs, 3-4 m tall; branches angled, pale red or pale yellow, often stout, armed with spines 2.5-4 mm. Petiole 2-5 mm, glabrous; leaf blade drying olive-green and abaxially paler, narrowly elliptic or oblong-lanceolate, 5-11 × 1.5-4 cm, both surfaces glabrous, base obtuse to acute or rarely subrounded, apex acuminate to slightly obtuse; secondary veins 5 or 6 pairs, with pilosulous domatia in abaxial axils; stipules triangular, ca. 2 mm. Inflorescences glabrescent; bracteoles squamiform, erose. Flowers subsessile. Calyx glabrous; limb ca. 4.5 mm, subtruncate or 5-denticulate. Corolla pale yellow, tubular-campanulate to tubular-funnelform, glabrous outside; tube at base ca. 3 mm in diam., in throat 6-7 mm in diam., glabrous inside, in staminate flower 10-11.5 mm, in pistillate flower 13-13.5 mm; lobes 5, suborbicular, 3.5-4 mm, obtuse. Style stout, 5-6 mm. Berry brown, ovoid to subglobose, 3.5-4.5 cm, glabrous, smooth; seeds dark brown, oblong or ellipsoid, 8-10 mm, rather shiny. Fl. Oct, fr. Apr of following year.

● Forests in valleys; 400-500 m. Hainan.