琼梅 qiong mei

Basionym: Meyna hainanensis Merrill, Lingnan Sci. J. 14: 57. 1935.

Small trees, 3-6 m tall; branches weakly flattened to subterete, glabrous or puberulent, at nodes with stipule bases together with bases of petioles usually markedly thickened with thickened portion sometimes tardily splitting interpetiolarly, usually with stout lateral short shoots 0.5-1 cm, these densely covered with scalelike old stipule bases. Leaves borne at nodes near apex of developed stems or clustered on short shoots; petiole 5-8 mm, glabrous, sometimes weakly articulate near base; blade drying papery or thinly papery, ovate, oblong-ovate, or elliptic-oblong, 3-9 × 1.5-5 cm, adaxially glabrous or rarely strigillose, abaxially strigillose or strigose, base obtuse to rounded, apex acute or acuminate; secondary veins 5 or 6 pairs, in abaxial axils with pilosulous domatia; stipules shortly united around stem with basal portion persistent becoming thickened and upper portion caducous, triangular to lanceolate, 2-5 mm, often keeled, acuminate to aristate. Inflorescences fasciculate to subumbelliform and subsessile, 1-1.5 cm, few to several flowered, puberulent or hirtellous to glabrescent; peduncles 4-8 mm; bracts reduced. Calyx puberulent; ovary portion obconic, ca. 0.5 mm; limb with lobes (4 or)5, triangular, 0.5-0.8 mm, acute. Corolla color not noted, funnelform, outside glabrous; tube ca. 3 mm, inside pubescent in upper half; lobes (4 or)5, lanceolate to spatulate-triangular, ca. 3 mm, acute to acuminate. Ovary 3- or 4-celled; stigma ca. 0.8 mm. Drupes with color not noted, subglobose, 8-10 mm in diam., puberulent to glabrescent, with calyx limb persistent; pyrenes 3 or 4. Fl. Apr-Aug, fr. Jun.

● Broad-leaved forests; 200-300 m. Hainan.

The illustration of this species presented by W. C. Ko (in FRPS 71(2): 8, t. 3. 1999) shows four calyx lobes and four corolla lobes; however, these structures both were described as five in the protologue, and the specimens seen have five calyx lobes.