Ilex fargesii Franch.

Trees evergreen, 4-8 m tall, or shrubs to 4 m tall, glabrous throughout. Branchlets brown or castaneous, terete, rugose; leaf scars deltoid and lenticels convex; young branchlets green, longitudinally angulate-ridged; terminal buds narrowly conical, apically acute. Petiole 0.8-1.6 cm, adaxially sulcate; leaf blade adaxially green, elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, oblanceolate, linear-oblanceolate, linear-lanceolate, or linear, 5-13(-16) × (0.8-)1.5-2.5(-3.7) cm, subleathery, midvein slightly impressed adaxially, lateral veins 8-10 pairs, raised abaxially, evident adaxially, reticulate veins evident abaxially, obscure adaxially, base cuneate or obtuse, margin sparsely serrulate in distal half or serrate in distal 2/3, apex acuminate. Inflorescences: cymes, fasciculate, axillary on second year’s branchlets. Male inflorescences: cymes of order 2, 3-flowered; peduncles ca. 1 mm; bracts deltoid, membranous, ciliate; pedicels ca. 2 mm; bracteoles 2, subbasal, deltoid or broadly deltoid, ciliate; flowers white, fragrant, 4-merous; calyx patelliform, ca. 2 mm in diam., 4-lobed, lobes suborbicular, ca. 1 mm, sparsely ciliate; corolla ca. 5 mm in diam., petals 4, obovate-oblong, 2-2.5 × ca. 1.5 mm, ciliate, basally slightly connate; stamens ca. 3/4 as long as petals, anthers oblong; rudimentary ovary ovoid-conical, apex obtuse, minutely 4-lobed. Female inflorescences: 1-flowered cymes; pedicels 2-3 mm; bracteoles 2 below middle; calyx as in male flowers; petals free, oblong, ca. 2 mm; staminodes shorter than petals, sterile anthers sagittate; ovary ovoid, 1.2-2 mm in diam., stigma discoid. Fruit red, globose, ca. 6 mm in diam., longitudinally striate; fruiting pedicels 5-7 mm; persistent calyx explanate; persistent stigma thinly discoid, 4-lobed; pyrenes 4, oblong, 4-4.5 mm, 3-3.5 mm in diam., abaxially convex, palmately striate and sulcate, laterally longitudinally striate and sulcate or sometimes reticulately striate and sulcate, endocarp woody. Fl. May, fr. Sep-Oct.

S Gansu, W Hubei, Hunan, S Shaanxi, Sichuan.

● Forests, forests and shrub forests on mountain slopes; 1500-3000 m.