油桐 you tong

Aleurites fordii Hemsley, Hooker’s Icon. Pl. 29: t. 2801, 2802. 1906.

Trees deciduous, up to 10 m tall, monoecious; bark gray, nearly smooth; branches verticillate, stout, glabrous, prominently lenticellate. Petiole as long as leaf blade, glabrescent, with 2 compressed and sessile glands; leaf blade ovate, 5-18 × 3-15 cm, puberulent when young, dark green and glabrous adaxially, gray-green and pubescent abaxially at maturity, base truncate to shallowly cordate, margin entire, rarely shallowly 1-3-fid, apex acute; palmate veins 5(-7). Inflorescences flat-topped panicles of cymes, appearing generally before new leaves, usually bisexual; calyx ca. 10 mm, 2(or 3)-fid, densely brown puberulent outside; petals obovate, 2-3 × 1-1.5 cm, yellow at base, pink to purplish, pink-veined, base clawed, apex rounded; stamens 8-12; outer filaments free, inner filaments connate to below middle; ovary 3-5(-8)-locular, pubescent; styles 3-5(-8), bifid. Drupe subglobose, 4-6(-8) cm in diam.; exocarp smooth, not grooved, 3- or 4(-8)-seeded. Seed coat woody. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. Aug-Nov.

Open forests; 200-1500(-2000) m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Vietnam; cultivated in the Old and New Worlds].

This species is usually cultivated on slopes below 800 m.