海南龙船花 hai nan long chuan hua

Ixora pygmaea Merrill & F. P. Metcalf.

Shrubs, 0.2-3 m tall; branches glabrous. Leaves opposite; petiole 2-8 mm, glabrous; blade drying papery to subleathery, dry dark green, slightly shiny to matte, elliptic-oblong, elliptic, or oblanceolate, 4-10(-14) × 1-5 cm, glabrous on both surfaces, base cuneate, rounded, or subcordate, apex rounded, obtuse, or bluntly acute; secondary veins 5-10 pairs; stipules persistent, shortly united around stem or subinterpetiolar, triangular to ovate, 4-10 mm, glabrous, long acute with apical portion 3-10 mm, at least sometimes glandular at tip. Inflorescence terminal, corymbiform to cymose, many flowered, glabrous; peduncle 1-4 cm; branched portion 2-3 × 2-5 cm (not including corollas); bracts linear-oblong, 1-3.5 mm; pedicels 0.5-3 mm. Flowers pedicellate. Calyx glabrous; hypanthium ellipsoid to obconic, 1-1.5 mm; limb deeply lobed; lobes triangular to ovate or lanceolate, 1-1.5 mm, acute to acuminate. Corolla white, outside glabrous; tube 30-40 mm, villous in throat; lobes narrowly spatulate to oblanceolate, 6-7 × 1-2 mm, acute. Drupe red, subglobose to ellipsoid, weakly compressed and didymous, ca. 6 × 6-8 mm, glabrous. Fl. May-Dec, fr. Jan, Oct-Dec.

● On sandy soil at streamsides in dense forests; 100-1100 m. Guangdong, Hainan.

The name Ixora pygmaea was synonymized by W. C. Ko in FRPS (71(2): 43. 1999); Merrill and Metcalf in fact suggested in the protologue that it might only be a depauperate form of I. hainanensis. The leaves are rather variable in shape, usually on the same plant as noted in the protologue.