Ilex dasyphylla Merr.

Shrubs or trees, evergreen, 2.5-9 m tall. Branchlets, petioles, leaf blades, pedicels, and calyx ferruginous hispidulous, hairs with tuberculate bases; branchlets zigzag, gray, subterete; leaf scars triangular or suborbicular, small, slightly raised; lenticels absent, scabrous-punctate, hairs deciduous. Stipules subulate, pubescent; petiole 3-5 mm; leaf blade green, shiny or not, ovate, ovate-elliptic, oblong-elliptic, or ovate-lanceolate, (2-)3-11 × 1-3.2 cm, leathery, both surfaces hispidulous or glabrescent, midvein impressed adaxially, lateral veins 7-9 pairs, slightly impressed or flat adaxially, reticulate veins indistinct adaxially, base obtuse or rounded, margin entire or upper half sparsely serrulate, recurved, ciliate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences: cymes, solitary, axillary on current year’s branchlets; flowers red, 4- or 5-merous. Male inflorescences: cymes of order 2 or 3, umbelliform, 3-5-flowered; peduncles 4-5 mm, slender; bracts deltoid, densely ferruginous hispidulous; pedicels ca. 2 mm; bracteoles basal, densely ferruginous pubescent; calyx patelliform, ca. 3 mm in diam., lobes orbicular or deltoid, ciliate; corolla rotate, petals reflexed at anthesis, oblong, ca. 3 × 2 mm, base slightly connate; stamens ca. as long as petals, anthers oblong; rudimentary ovary pyramidal. Female inflorescences: cymes of order 1 or 2, 1-3-flowered; peduncles 5-8 mm; bracts linear-lanceolate, ca. 1.5 mm; pedicels 3-8 mm; bracteoles basal, minute, densely ferruginous hispidulous; calyx and corolla as in male flowers; staminodes ca. 1/2 as long as petals, sterile anthers sagittate; ovary ovoid-conical, ca. 1.5 mm, glabrous, stigma mammilliform. Fruit red, globose, 5-7 mm in diam.; exocarp thick, smooth; persistent calyx explanate, pentagonal, 3.5-4 mm in diam., shallowly 5-lobed; persistent stigma thickly discoid, convex; pyrenes 4 or 5, oblong-ellipsoidal, 4-6 mm, ca. 2.5 mm in diam., abaxially broadly and deeply 1-sulcate, smooth, not striate, endocarp leathery. Fl. May, fr. Aug-Dec.

Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi (Guinan), Hunan, Jiangxi.

● Sparse forests or shrub forests on mountains, roadsides; 300-700 m.

Ilex flaveomollissima F. P. Metcalf.