厚梗染木树 hou geng ran mu shu

Shrubs 1-2 m tall or occasionally small trees to 5 m tall; branches weakly flattened to subterete, glabrous. Leaves opposite; petiole 3-10 mm, glabrous to sparsely strigillose; blade drying thinly leathery, dark to pale green, elliptic-ovate or oblong-ovate, 8-16 × ca. 6 cm, both surfaces glabrous, base obtuse or rounded, apex abruptly acuminate; secondary veins 7-10 pairs, joining in a submarginal vein, without domatia; stipules caducous, triangular, ca. 1.5 mm, strigillose to glabrous, acute. Inflorescences axillary and sometimes also terminal, capitate, several flowered, strigillose to glabrous; peduncle compressed, 5-8 mm; bracts ovate, 1-2 mm; pedicels to 2 mm. Flowers subsessile to pedicellate. Calyx with hypanthium portion cupuliform, ca. 1 mm, glabrous; limb 0.8-1 mm, shallowly lobed, strigillose to glabrous; lobes broadly triangular, ciliate. Corolla tubular-funnelform, glabrous outside, villous inside; tube 7-8 mm; lobes broadly ovate, ca. 2 mm. Drupes ellipsoid, 7-8 mm; pyrenes hemispherical, verrucose abaxially. Fl. May, fr. May-Oct.

● Forest margins; 300-1300 m. Hainan, Yunnan (Xishuangbanna) [?Vietnam].

A recent analysis of molecular data suggested that this species may be better placed in Lasianthus, though the authors did not make a formal nomenclatural transfer (Xiao & Zhu, Bot. Stud. (Taipei) 48: 227-232. 2007).