纤枝冬青 xian zhi dong qing

Trees evergreen, small, ca. 8 m tall. Young branchlets castaneous or black, shiny, subterete, slender, irregularly striate, pubescent; second year’s branchlets terete, glabrescent; terminal buds lanceolate, ferruginous pubescent. Petiole ca. 1 cm, pubescent, adaxially narrowly sulcate; leaf blade olivaceous when dry, elliptic or oblong-elliptic, 7-9 × 2.5-3.5 cm, leathery, both surfaces glabrous, sometimes strigose, midvein impressed adaxially, lateral veins 7-9 pairs, slightly raised on both surfaces, anastomosing near margin, reticulate veins slightly raised abaxially, inconspicuous adaxially, base obtuse or acute, margin crenulate-serrate, apex abruptly caudate-acuminate, acumen 1-1.5 cm. Flowers not known. Infructescences: 1-fruited cymes, fasciculate or pseudoracemose, axillary, fascicles 4- or 5-fruited; fruiting pedicels 3.5-4 mm, densely pubescent; persistent bracteoles basal, deltoid, pubescent. Fruit (immature) subglobose or ellipsoidal-globose, ca. 5 mm, ca. 4 mm in diam., pubescent; persistent calyx ca. 2 mm in diam., shallowly 4-lobed, lobes deltoid, ciliate; persistent stigma discoid; pyrenes 4, oblong, ca. 3.5 mm, ca. 2 mm in diam., abaxially palmately striate and sulcate, laterally striate and sulcate, endocarp stony. Fl. unknown, fr. Oct.

● Evergreen broad-leaved forests; 2300-2900 m. NW Yunnan (Gongshan).