云贵叶下珠 yun gui ye xia zhu

Phyllanthus leiboensis T. L. Chin.

Shrubs 1-2 m tall, monoecious, glabrous throughout; stems red-brown; branches terete; branchlets delicate, gray-green, usually 1 to several clustered on short shoots. Leaves densely distichous, 12-20 pairs per branchlet; stipules linear-lanceolate, 1-2 mm; petiole ca. 0.5 mm; leaf blade obliquely elliptic, slightly falcately inflected, 3-7 × ca. 3 mm, papery, base obliquely rounded, apex apiculate, abaxially pale greenish; lateral veins 3 or 4 pairs, obscure. Male inflorescences axillary along lower part of branchlet, usually 1-flowered. Male flowers: pedicels 2-4 mm, filamentous; sepals 4, oblong-ovate, ca. 1.2 mm, red, margins irregularly lacerate-serrate; disk glands 4, oblong; stamens 2; filaments very short, connate; anthers free, reniform, transversely dehiscent. Female flowers solitary, axillary on upper part of branchlet; pedicel 5-8 mm, thicker apically; sepals 6, persistent in fruit, oblong-ovate, ca. 2 mm, margins lacerate-serrate; disk disk-shaped, apex shallowly undulate; ovary subglobose, smooth, 3-celled; styles 3, connate at base, bifid at apex, lobes subulate. Capsules globose, ca. 5 mm in diam., smooth. Seed ovoid, ca. 1.5 mm. Fl. Feb-Jul, fr. Jun-Sep.

● Scrub, open forests; 400-1000 m. Guizhou, Sichuan (Jinyang, Leibo), Yunnan (Daguan, Gengma, Yanjin, Yuanjiang, Yuanyan).