观光木 guan guang mu

Tsoongiodendron odorum Chun, Acta Phytotax. Sin. 8: 283. 1963; Magnolia odora (Chun) Figlar & Nooteboom.

Trees, to 25 m tall. Bark pale grayish brown, deeply wrinkled. Twigs, buds, petioles, leaf blade abaxial surfaces and adaxial midvein, and brachyblasts yellowish brown strigose. Stipular scar nearly reaching middle of petiole. Petiole 1.2-2.5 cm, flattened at base; leaf blade obovate-elliptic, 8-17 × 3.5-7 cm, middle and apical part wider, adaxially green and glossy, midvein, secondary veins, and reticulate veins adaxially impressed, secondary veins 10-12 on each side, base cuneate, apex acute to obtuse. Brachyblasts ca. 6 mm, with 1 bract scar; spathaceous bract dehiscing along one side, pubescent. Flowers fragrant. Tepals ivory-yellow and red-dotted, narrowly obovate-elliptic; outer tepals largest, 1.7-2 × 0.7-0.8 cm; innermost tepals 1.5-1.6 × ca. 0.5 cm. Stamens 35-45, 7.5-8.5 mm; filaments white or reddish, 2-3 mm. Gynophore stout, ca. 2 mm, sulcate, densely strigose; carpels 9-13, narrowly ovoid, densely appressed pubescent, ventral sutures conspicuous; styles red, subulate, ca. 2 mm. Fruiting brachyblasts 1-2 × 1-2 cm. Fruit dark brown when dry, markedly yellow-dotted, long ellipsoid, sometimes globose because of upper carpels aborted, ca. 13 × 9 cm, hanging on old twigs; pericarp olive green, glaucous, lenticellate; valves thick, 1-2 cm. Seeds 4-6 per carpel, ellipsoid to triangular-obovoid, ca. 1.5 × 0.8 cm. Fl. Mar, fr. Oct-Dec. 2n = 38.

Evergreen broad-leaved forests; 300-1100 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, S Hunan, S Jiangxi, SE Yunnan [N Vietnam].

This species is grown as an ornamental and used for timber.