苗山冬青 miao shan dong qing

Trees evergreen, 8-12 m tall. Branchlets subterete, robust, glabrous; young branchlets longitudinally ridged and sulcate, old ones longitudinally rugose, with semicircular leaf scars, lenticels absent; terminal buds conical, axillary buds globose, glabrous. Leaves on first to third year’s branchlets; petiole 0.8-1.5 cm, abaxially rugose, adaxially narrowly sulcate, glabrous or puberulent; leaf blade abaxially greenish, adaxially green, oblong, elliptic, oblong-elliptic, or oblanceolate, rarely obovate, (7-)11-15 × (3-)4-5.5 cm, thickly leathery, rarely leathery, midvein impressed and sparsely puberulent adaxially, lateral veins 8-15 pairs, slightly raised adaxially, reticulate veins obscure abaxially, evident adaxially, base obtuse, rarely rounded or cuneate, margin sparsely serrate, apex acuminate. Flowers not known. Infructescences: usually 1-fruited cymes, few fascicled; fruiting pedicels 2-4 mm, slightly puberulent when young, later glabrescent; bracteoles 2, subbasal. Fruit red, globose, 1.1-2.6 cm in diam.; persistent calyx explanate, ca. 3.5 mm in diam., inconspicuously 4-lobed, lobes rounded, slightly puberulent and ciliate; persistent stigma navel-like, 4-5 mm in diam., orbicular when young, becoming quadrangular; pyrenes 4, obovoid, 1-1.2 cm, 6-9 mm in diam., reticulately striate, sulcate, rugose and pitted, abaxially flat and broadly impressed, endocarp stony. Fl. May, fr. Aug-Nov.

● Forests, hilly areas; 800-1500 m. Guangdong (Lianshan), Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan.

Lower Taxa

• Ilex chingiana var. chingiana
• Ilex chingiana var. megacarpa (H. G. Ye & H. S. Chen) L. G. Lei
• Ilex chingiana var. puberula S. Y. Hu