Ilex shennongjiaensis T. R. Dudley & S. C. Sun

Trees evergreen, ca. 10 m tall, ca. 25 cm d.b.h.; bark gray-white, shiny. Young branchlets reddish brown, smooth, very sparsely puberulent, glabrescent; older branchlets grayish brown, shiny, terete, 3-4 mm in diam., glabrous; terminal buds shortly stalked, ovoid or ellipsoidal, 3-4 mm, glabrous or sparsely puberulent, apically acute. Stipules subulate, minute, ca. 0.5 mm, glabrous; petiole 2.5-3(-4) mm, sparsely puberulent, deeply sulcate adaxially; leaf blade adaxially deep green, shiny, elliptic-ovate, 2.5-4(-5) × (1-)1.5-2.5(-3) cm, thickly leathery, adaxially glabrous, midvein flat or sometimes impressed adaxially, base shortly attenuate or truncate to briefly cuneate, margin crenulate-serrate in upper part, apex acute to slightly obtuse, mucronate. Flowers not known. Infructescences: cymes, solitary, axillary on current year’s branchlets; peduncles erect; fruiting pedicels 5.5-12 mm, stout, glabrous; bracteoles 2, ovate, 1-1.5 mm, glabrous. Fruit red, depressed globose, 8-12 mm in diam., glabrous; persistent calyx explanate, 4-5 mm in diam., glabrous, 4-6-lobed, lobes 1-1.5 × 0.5-1 mm, apex obtuse to subacute, not ciliate; persistent stigma rounded, 1.2-2 mm in diam., 4-lobed; pyrenes 4 or 5, oblong, 4-5 mm, 2.5-3 mm in diam., abaxially 3-striate and sulcate, laterally smooth, not striate, endocarp bony. Fl. unknown, fr. Aug-Sep.

W Hubei (Shennongjia Linqu).

● Thickets; 1800-2000 m.