Koelreuteria apiculata Rehder & E. H. Wilson; K. bipinnata Franchet var. apiculata F. C. How & C. N. Ho; K. chinensis (Murray) Hoffmannsegg; K. paniculata var. apiculata (Rehder & E. H. Wilson) Rehder; K. paniculata var. lixianensis H. L. Tsiang; Sapindus chinensis Murray.

Trees or shrubs, deciduous. Bark grayish brown to black, stout, fissured when dry; lenticels gray to dark brown, small; branches tuberculate, appressed pubescent or glabrous with axes and petioles. Leaves fascicled on young branches, spreading, pinnate, imperfectly bipinnate, or sometimes bipinnate, to 50 cm; leaflets (7-)11-18 (terminal one sometimes connate with uppermost pair below middle), sessile or very shortly petiolate, opposite or alternate, ovate or broadly ovate to ovate-lanceolate, (3-)5-10 × 3-6 cm, papery, abaxially barbate on vein axils, sometimes tomentose, or densely pale yellow pubescent, adaxially scattered appressed pubescent on midvein, base obtuse to subtruncate, apex acute or shortly acuminate, margin irregularly obtusely serrate, teeth mucronate at tips, sometimes teeth near base sparse and fissured, or pinnately lobed. Thyrses 25-40 cm, densely pilosulose, branches spreading and long, cymes on last branches 3-6-flowered, densely arranged and capitate; bracts narrowly lanceolate, scabrous-hairy. Flowers pale yellow, slightly fragrant. Pedicels 2.5-5 mm. Sepals ovate, margin glandular ciliate, erose. Petals 4, reflexed when flowering, linear-oblong, 5-9 mm, claw 1-2.5 mm, villous; scale yellow at first, orange when flowering, irregularly fissured, tuberculate, appressed hairy. Stamens 8, 7-9 mm in male flowers, 4-5 mm in female ones; filaments densely spreading white villous at lower half. Disk oblique, with obtuse lobes. Ovary trigonous, glabrous except on ridges; rudimentary ovary densely hispidulous. Capsules conical, 4-6 cm, 3-ridged, apex acuminate; carpels ovoid, abaxially reticulate veined, adaxially smooth and slightly shiny. Seeds subglobose, 6-8 mm in diam. Fl. Jun-Aug, fr. Sep-Oct.

This species is used as an ornamental and for timber.

● Anhui, Gansu, Hebei, Henan, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Yunnan [widely cultivated elsewhere].