菱叶花椒 ling ye hua jiao

Shrubs 1-2 m tall, erect, glabrous. Branchlets and leaf rachises unarmed or prickly. Young branchlets purplish red. Leaves 7-15-foliolate; petiolules 1-5 mm; leaflet blades subopposite or alternate, rhombic, elliptic, or broadly ovate, 1.5-5 × 1-2.5 cm, leathery, oil glands numerous and slightly protruding when dry, midvein adaxially impressed, secondary veins 4-7 on each side of midvein, base oblique or symmetric and narrowly to broadly cuneate, margin crenate, apex mucronate to caudate. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, 4-10 cm. Flowers 4-merous. Perianth in 2 series. Sepals purplish green, ovate to broadly deltoid, ca. 0.3 mm. Petals 2-3 mm. Male flowers subsessile; rudimentary gynoecium shortly club-shaped, 2-cleft to entire. Fruit pedicel 1-3 mm; follicles red when mature, ca. 5 mm in diam., oil glands numerous and slightly protruding. Seeds ca. 4 mm in diam. Fl. May, fr. Sep.

● Upland open forests; 500-1000 m. Chongqing (Nanchuan, Zhongxian), Guizhou (Zheng’an).