Plagiospermum Oliver.

Shrubs, erect or scandent, deciduous. Branches with leafless or few-leaved axillary spines, pith lamellate. Winter buds small, with a few hairy scales. Stipules small, soon caducous. Leaves alternate, sometimes fascicled on short shoots, simple; petiole short, often ill-defined, with or without slender and inconspicuous nectaries; leaf blade glabrous, margin entire or serrulate. Inflorescences solitary or fascicled on short branchlets in leaf axils of previous year’s branches, racemose, or 1-flowered. Flowers bisexual. Pedicel absent or essentially so. Hypanthium mouth with an annular disc. Sepals 5, unequal, persistent in fruit. Petals 5, white, cream, or yellow, suborbicular, base clawed. Stamens 10 or more, in 2 or more whorl, inserted on hypanthium rim; filaments short. Ovary superior, glabrous, 1-loculed; ovules 2, parallel, pendulous. Style lateral; stigma capitate. Fruit a drupe; mesocarp fleshy; endocarp leathery, smooth or slightly furrowed.

About five species: China, Himalayas; four species (three endemic) in China.

(Authors: Gu Cuizhi (Ku Tsue-chih); Bruce Bartholomew)