Ilex nitidissima C. J. Tseng

Trees evergreen, small, ca. 6 m tall. Current year’s branchlets longitudinally angular, puberulent or glabrescent; second year’s branchlets gray, glabrous. Petiole 6-8 mm, puberulent, longitudinally sulcate adaxially; leaf blade abaxially brown, adaxially dark olivaceous, very nitid or nitid when dry, elliptic or oblong-elliptic, rarely ovate-elliptic, 5.5-9 × 2.7-4 cm, leathery, abaxially glabrous except on midvein, midvein proximal half adaxially raised, distal half gradually flat or impressed, puberulent, lateral veins 8-10 pairs, evident or obscure adaxially, reticulate veins obscure on both surfaces, base obtuse or cuneate, rarely subrounded, margin subentire, sometimes sparsely inconspicuously serrulate, apex acuminate. Flowers not known. Infructescences: 1-fruited cymes, fasciculate, fascicles 2-4-fruited, axillary; fruiting pedicels 8-10 mm. Fruit red, globose; persistent calyx patelliform, glabrous, 4-lobed, lobes suborbicular or broadly deltoid-ovate, not ciliate; persistent stigma discoid or capitate; pyrenes 4, ovoid, ca. 4 mm, ca. 2.5 mm in diam., abaxially slightly convex, neither striate nor sulcate, endocarp leathery. Fl. unknown, fr. Aug-Oct.

Guangxi, S Hunan (Yizhang), NE Jiangxi (Guangfeng).

● Dense or sparse forests, mixed forests, mountain slopes; 800-1300 m.