大花花椒 da hua hua jiao

Fagara macrantha Handel-Mazzetti, Sinensia 5: 17. 1934.

Woody climbers, unarmed or echinate on abaxial surface of leaf rachis. Branchlets dark gray, rugose. Leaves 3- or 7(or 9)-foliolate; leaflet blades opposite, ovate, elliptic, or oblanceolate, 5-10 × 1.5-4 cm, thickly leathery, abaxially lustrous when dry, oil glands visible and slightly protruding when dry, midvein impressed and puberulent, base symmetric or rarely oblique, margin entire or crenate and becoming revolute. Inflorescences axillary, thyrsiform. Female flowers subsessile or with a pedicel to 1 mm, male flowers with a longer pedicel. Flowers 4-merous. Perianth in 2 series. Sepals purplish green. Petals pale yellowish green, broadly elliptic, ca. 3 mm. Male flowers: filaments ca. 4 mm; rudimentary gynoecium shortly club-shaped, apically 2-lobed. Female flowers: carpels 4. Infructescences 3-5 cm. Fruit pedicel 2-3 mm; follicles reddish brown, 5.6-6 mm in diam., with a flange, oil glands impressed, apex beaked. Seeds ca. 5 mm in diam. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Aug-Sep.

● Upland open forests and thickets; 500-3100 m. Chongqing (Nanchuan), Guizhou, SW Henan, W Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan (Emei Shan), S Yunnan (Xishuangbanna), SE Xizang.