假九节 jia jiu jie

Shrubs, 0.5-4 m tall; stems puberulent to glabrous. Petiole 0.5-2 cm, puberulent to glabrous; leaf blade drying papery to thinly leathery, pale or usually reddish brown to dark brown, narrowly elliptic, narrowly lanceolate-oblong, narrowly lanceolate, or narrowly elliptic-oblong, 5.5-15 × 1.5-4 cm, glabrous adaxially, glabrous to puberulent abaxially, base cuneate to acute, margins flat, apex acuminate or caudate-acuminate; secondary veins 4-8 pairs, free or forming a weak, looping, submarginal vein, without or rarely with pilosulous domatia; stipules caducous, ovate-triangular, triangular, or lanceolate, interpetiolar, 2-8 mm, glabrous to puberulent, 2-lobed for 1/4-1/2, lobes narrowly triangular to linear. Inflorescences terminal and sometimes pseudoaxillary or rarely in uppermost leaf axils (He Guosheng 6040, MO!), cymose, densely puberulent, sessile to pedunculate; peduncle to 0.6 cm; branched portion corymbiform, 1.5-6 × 1-4 cm, with 1 or 2 pairs of developed secondary axes; bracts lanceolate to triangular, 0.3-2 mm; pedicels to 0.5 mm. Flowers sessile to subsessile in congested small cymules. Calyx puberulent to glabrescent; hypanthium portion obconic to turbinate, 0.8-1 mm; limb 0.5-0.8 mm, lobed shallowly or up to 1/2; lobes broadly triangular. Corolla white or greenish white, tubular, glabrous outside; tube 2-3 mm, in throat white villous; lobes oblong-lanceolate, 1.5-2 mm. Drupes subglobose, 5-7 × 4-6 mm, color unknown; pyrenes shallowly 3- or 4-ribbed to subsmooth. Fl. Apr-Jul, fr. Jun-Dec.

Thickets or forests in ravines or on hill slopes; 200-1000 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Yunnan [Vietnam].

W. C. Chen (in FRPS 71(2): 54. 1999) described leaf sizes and secondary vein numbers that are unusually large, to 22 × 6 cm and 13 pairs, respectively; these measurement have not been seen on any specimens studied nor reported by any other authors.