茎花守宫木 jing hua shou gong mu

Shrubs to 3 m tall, monoecious, glabrous throughout; stem gray; branches angular, green. Stipules triangular, 3-5 mm; petiole 3-6 mm; leaf blade oblong-elliptic, ovate-lanceolate, or oblanceolate, 7-14 × 2.5-5 cm, papery, abaxially greenish, dark green adaxially, base broadly cuneate, apex acuminate or shortly so; venation pinnate, lateral veins 7-11 pairs, obliquely ascending, arcuately anastomosing to before margins. Inflorescences cauliflorous, from base to lower part of stem, narrow racemelike thyrses, usually pendent, 6-15 cm, bisexual; peduncles and pedicels with imbricate bracts and bracteoles. Male flowers: pedicels filamentous, 2-34 mm; calyx cup-shaped, 3-5 mm in diam., margins undulate, membranous, yellowish, with red streak; disk shallowly 6-fid, adnate to calyx; stamens 3; filaments connate into a cylinder; anthers oblong. Female flowers: pedicels 2-3 mm; calyx campanulate, 3-5 mm in diam., 6-lobed; sepals biseriate, spatulate or obovate, outer 3-5 mm, inner 2-4 mm; ovary ovoid or globose, 3-locular; styles 3, free, bifid at apex, arms recurved. Capsules subglobose, ca. 1.5 × 2 cm, prominently 6-valved when mature. Fl. Apr-Aug, fr. Jun-Oct.

Forests or scrubby slopes on limestone; 200-500 m. NW and SW Guangxi (Longzhou, Tian’e) [Vietnam].

Records of Sauropus bonii from Thailand seem to be based on a misidentification of S. disciflorus Welzen, which has much shorter inflorescences.