Capparis pumila Champion ex Bentham; C. sciaphila Hance; Cudrania bodinieri H. Léveillé; Vanieria bodinieri (H. Léveillé) Chun.

Shrubs, scandent, 2-5 m tall. Older twigs cylindric, nearly glabrous, internode 1-4 cm; twigs light gray to light green, straight and not bent, with ridge angle when young, pale yellow pubescent. Stipular spines firm, flat or recurved, 2-5 mm, on flower twigs small or absent, apex often dark black. Petiole 4-6(-10) mm, trichomes like those on twigs; leaf blade oblong, oblong-lanceolate, or sometimes ovate, 5-10(-12) × 1.5-4 cm, nearly leathery, abaxially orangish red when young but reddish brown when dry, adaxially pale green when dry, glabrous or when young midvein on both surfaces apically sparsely shortly pubescent but glabrescent, midvein abaxially raised and adaxially impressed, secondary veins 7-10(-12) on each side of midvein and inconspicuous, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, apex often acuminate and shortly mucronate. Inflorescences axillary and subumbellate or axillary and terminal thus forming a panicle, to 11-flowered; peduncle 1-3 cm, trichomes like those on twigs; bracts early falling, subulate, 1-2 mm; bractlets small, sometimes absent. Flowers fragrant or not. Pedicel 7-12 mm. Sepals 4-5 × ca. 3 mm; sepals of outer whorl navicular, outside shortly pubescent particularly near base, inside glabrous, margin membranous and glabrous; sepals of inner whorl elliptic to obovate, slightly smaller, margin white, membranous, and with white cilia. Petals white, obovate to oblong, 4-6 × 1.5-2.5 mm, inside basal and central parts white pubescent. Stamens 20-45; filaments white when fresh but red when dry, 0.8-1.5 cm; anthers 0.7-0.8 mm. Gynophore 6-8(-12) mm, glabrous; ovary nearly ellipsoid, ca. 1.5 × 1 mm, glabrous; placentae 2. Fruit spheroid to ellipsoid, 1-1.5 cm in diam., smooth; pericarp thin, leathery. Seeds 1 to several per fruit, globose or nearly ellipsoid, 6-7 mm. Fl. and fr. almost all year.

Wet and shaded water sides, hillsides, shrub thickets, open forests; near sea level to 800(-1100) m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, S and SE Yunnan [Bhutan, E India, Indonesia, Myanmar, S Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam; Indian Ocean islands].