狗骨柴 gou gu chai

Canthium dubium Lindley, Bot. Reg. 12: t. 1026. 1826; Diplospora buisanensis Hayata; D. tanakae Hayata; D. viridiflora Candolle; Tricalysia dubia (Lindley) Ohwi; T. lutea Handel-Mazzetti; T. viridiflora (Candolle) Masamune; T. viridiflora var. buisanensis (Hayata) Yamamoto; T. viridiflora var. tanakae (Hayata) Yamamoto.

Shrubs or trees, 1-12 m; branches terete to somewhat flattened, glabrous. Petiole 4-15 mm, glabrous; leaf blade drying leathery or rarely thickly papery, and yellowish green to brown, ovate-oblong, elliptic-oblong, elliptic, or lanceolate, 4-19.5 × 1.5-8 cm, both surfaces glabrous and rather shiny, base acute, cuneate, or obtuse, sometimes slightly oblique, margins often thinly revolute, apex acute to acuminate with tip often ultimately obtuse; secondary veins 5-11 pairs, without domatia; stipules persistent on distalmost 1 or 2(-4) nodes, ovate to triangular, 5-8 mm, glabrous, densely white sericeous inside, acute, keeled in upper part with keel often extending into an arista 1-4 mm. Inflorescences subcapitate to congested-fasciculate, 6-10 mm, puberulent to strigillose, tomentulose, or puberulent, sessile or subsessile; bracts triangular, ca. 1 mm, frequently fused in pairs, acute; pedicels 1-4 mm. Calyx strigillose to glabrescent; ovary portion obconic to obovoid, 0.5-1 mm; limb ca. 1 mm, 4-denticulate, sometimes also irregularly splitting. Corolla white or yellow, glabrous outside or sometimes strigose on tube; tube 2-3 mm; lobes elliptic-oblong to narrowly elliptic, 3-4 mm, obtuse. Fruiting pedicels to 8 mm. Berry red, subglobose, 4-9 mm in diam., sparsely strigillose to glabrous; seeds dark red, subovoid, 3-6 × 3-4 mm. Fl. Apr-Aug, fr. May-Feb of following year.

Thickets or forests on hillsides, ravines, fields; near sea level to 1500 m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Japan, Vietnam].

This is one of the most commonly collected Rubiaceae species in China.