Ilex buergeri Miq.

Shrubs or trees, evergreen, (1-)7-15 m tall, ca. 30 cm d.b.h.; bark black, smooth. Branchlets terete, longitudinally ridged and sulcate, densely pubescent; old branchlets glabrescent; leaf scars slightly raised, crescent-shaped; terminal buds subovoid, bud scales densely pubescent. Petiole 4-8 mm, abaxially subrounded, rugose, puberulent, adaxially sulcate, pubescent; leaf blade abaxially greenish, adaxially dark green, shiny, ovate, oblong, or ovate-lanceolate, 4-8 × 1.7-2.5 cm, leathery, abaxially glabrous, adaxially glabrous except on midvein, midvein impressed and puberulent adaxially, lateral veins 7 or 8 pairs, slightly raised abaxially, minutely impressed adaxially when dry, reticulate veins obscure, base rounded, obtuse, or cuneate, margin slightly reflexed, sparsely irregularly shallowly serrate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences: 1-flowered cymes, fasciculate, fascicles 4-10-flowered, axillary on current year’s branchlets; scales of flower buds reniform, pubescent, ciliate; bracts ovate, ca. 1.5 mm, pubescent; pedicels short, 2-3 mm, pubescent; bracteoles 2, basal, ovate-lanceolate, ciliate. Male flowers: calyx patelliform, ca. 2 mm in diam., 4-lobed, lobes deltoid, pubescent or subglabrous, ciliate; corolla yellowish green, 6-7 mm in diam., petals 4, oblong-obovate, ca. 3 mm, ciliate at apex, basally slightly connate; stamens 4, longer than petals, anthers oblong; rudimentary ovary conical, apex 4-lobed. Female flowers: calyx as in male flowers; petals free, equaling or slightly shorter than ovary, ciliate; staminodes equaling or slightly shorter than petals, sterile anthers ovoid; ovary ovoid, ca. 2.5 mm, ca. 1.7 mm in diam., stigma discoid. Fruit red, globose or subglobose, 4.5-6 mm in diam., tuberculate; fruiting pedicel ca. 2.5 mm, persistent calyx explanate, 2-2.5 mm in diam., lobes 4, deltoid, ciliate; persistent stigma discoid, 4-lobed; fruiting pedicel very short, ca. 1 mm; pyrenes 4, subglobose, ca. 3 mm, ca. 3 mm in diam., abaxially longitudinally 4- or 5-palmately striate and broadly shallowly sulcate, laterally rugose and sulcate, endocarp stony. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. Oct-Nov.

S Anhui (Qimen), Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang [Japan].

Evergreen broad-leaved forests, forest margins, stream banks, slopes; 100-700 m.

Ilex buergeri f. subpuberula (Miquel) Loesener; I. subpuberula Miquel.