美果九节 mei guo jiu jie

Subshrubs, 0.25-1 m tall, often rhizomatous; stems pilosulous to glabrous. Petiole 0.5-4 cm, glabrous or brown pilosulous; leaf blade drying papery, brownish red, gray, or dark green, elliptic-oblong, elliptic, obovate-oblong, or elliptic-lanceolate, 9.5-17 × 2.5-7 cm, glabrous on both surfaces or densely puberulent to hirtellous abaxially, base cuneate to acute, margins flat, apex acute, acuminate, or rarely obtuse; secondary veins 9-15 pairs, forming a generally straight submarginal vein, without domatia; stipules caducous, ovate to suborbicular, interpetiolar, basal portion 4-10 mm, glabrous or puberulent to hirtellous, 2-lobed, lobes narrowly triangular, 2-6 mm, acuminate to subulate. Inflorescences terminal or pseudoaxillary, congested-cymose, several to many flowered, hirtellous; peduncle 0.8-2 cm; branched portion corymbiform to subglobose, 1-3 × 2-4 cm, branched to 1 or weakly 2 orders; bracts lanceolate to narrowly triangular, 0.8-5 mm; pedicels 1-6 mm. Flowers pedicellate. Calyx glabrous to puberulent; limb ca. 2 mm, deeply lobed; lobes linear to linear-lanceolate, entire to ciliolate. Corolla white; tube ca. 2 mm, white villous inside; lobes elliptic-oblong, obtuse. Drupes red or orange, ellipsoid, 7-8.5 × 4.5-6 mm; pyrenes with 4 or 5 low ridges. Fl. May-Jul, fr. Aug-Feb of following year.

Forests on mountain slopes; 800-1700 m. Xizang, Yunnan [Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam].

This species is used medicinally.

W. C. Chen (in FRPS 71(2): 51. 1999) described the calyx lobes as 4, but they are 5 on all the specimens studied.