Ilex marlipoensis H. W. Li ex Y. R. Li

Trees, rarely shrubs, evergreen, 5-15 m tall, glabrous throughout. Branches brown to black-brown when dry, longitudinally angular and sulcate, smooth; second year’s branchlets castaneous; leaf scars slightly raised, crescent-shaped; lenticels absent; terminal buds ovoid-conical, glabrous, apex acute. Petiole 9-10 mm, abaxially convex, transversely rugose, adaxially deeply sulcate; leaf blade adaxially deep green, oblong-elliptic, rarely ovate, (5-)6.5-11.5 × (2.5-)3.5-4 cm, thinly leathery, midvein impressed adaxially, lateral veins 7-10 pairs, raised abaxially, flattened to slightly impressed adaxially, furcate and anastomosing near margin, reticulate veins evident on both surfaces, base rounded or obtuse, margin slightly recurved, sparsely and shallowly serrulate, apex abruptly caudate-acuminate, acumen 1-1.5 cm, straight or slightly curved. Flowers not known. Infructescences: 1-fruited cymes, fasciculate, axillary on current year’s branchlets; rachis nearly absent; fruiting pedicels ca. 3 mm, glabrous; bracteoles 2, basal, ovate-deltoid, glabrous, ca. 1 mm. Fruit (immature) ellipsoidal, ca. 5 mm, 3.5-4 mm in diam.; persistent calyx explanate, ca. 2 mm in diam., deeply 4-lobed, lobes ovate-deltoid; persistent stigma thickly discoid, shallowly 4-lobed; pyrenes 4, ellipsoidal, 3.5-4 mm, ca. 2 mm in diam., abaxially palmately striate and sulcate. Fl. unknown, fr. May.

SE Yunnan (Malipo).

● Evergreen broad-leaved forests; 1300-1400 m.