印藏核果茶 yin zang he guo cha

Pyrenaria tibetana Hung T. Chang.

Trees 13-40 m tall. Young branches thick; current year branchlets appressed pubescent when young, soon glabrescent. Petiole 6-10 mm, puberulent or glabrescent; leaf blade broadly oblanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 7-20 × 3-8 cm, leathery, abaxially pale green, sparsely appressed pubescent or glabrescent, and becoming brown when dry, adaxially dark green, glabrous, and becoming yellowish brown when dry, midvein abaxially elevated and adaxially impressed, secondary veins 12-17 on each side of midvein, abaxially raised, and adaxially slightly impressed, base cuneate and decurrent, margin serrate, apex acute to acuminate. Flowers axillary, solitary. Pedicel 4-6 mm, glabrous; bracteoles leaflike, leathery, ovate and 2-3 mm when young, later lanceolate and 8-10 mm. Sepals suborbicular, 8-9 mm, outside densely sericeous. Petals white, obovate to suborbicular, ca. 1.2 cm, outside densely sericeous. Stamens numerous, ca. 6 mm; filaments distinct, glabrous. Ovary tomentose, 5-loculed; styles 5, distinct. Fruit drupaceous, indehiscent, oblate to subglobose, 3-4 cm in diam. when fresh but 1.5-2 × 2-2.5 cm when dry, 5-loculed, fleshy, apex with a sunken hole with 5 protuberances; pericarp 4-6 mm thick, fleshy when fresh but becoming spongy when dry. Seeds laterally compressed, oblong, 6-8 × 5-6 mm. Fl. Jun, fr. Aug-Sep.

Evergreen broad-leaved forests; 600-2100 m. SE Xizang [NE India].