Ilex goshiensis Hayata

Shrubs or trees, evergreen, to 12 m tall; bark gray-brown. Branchlets slender, puberulent; third year’s branchlets longitudinally rugose; leaf scars raised, semicircular; lenticels conspicuous; current year’s branchlets longitudinally ridged; terminal buds conical, small, puberulent. Stipules deltoid, puberulent, apically acute; petiole 4-8 mm, adaxially longitudinally broadly and shallowly sulcate, puberulent; leaf blade brown-green when dry on both surfaces, adaxially slightly shiny, broadly elliptic or subrhombic-elliptic, 3-5 × 1.5-2.5 cm, leathery, abaxially minutely black glandular punctate, adaxially glabrous except on midvein, midvein slightly raised abaxially, slightly impressed or flattened and puberulent adaxially, lateral veins 4-6 pairs, obscure on both surfaces, reticulate veins obscure, base broadly cuneate or acute, margin entire, apex abruptly shortly acuminate, tip obtuse and retuse. Inflorescences: cymes, fasciculate, axillary. Male inflorescences: cymes of order 2 or 3, 3-7-flowered, puberulent or rarely glabrescent; bracts puberulent, tricuspidate; peduncles 4-5 mm; pedicels 2-3 mm; bracteoles minute, puberulent; flowers 4- or 5-merous; calyx patelliform, ca. 2 mm in diam., puberulent, shallowly 4-lobed, rarely 5-lobed, lobes orbicular, densely ciliate; corolla rotate, 4-5 mm in diam., petals 4, oblong, ca. 1.7 mm, basally slightly connate; stamens shorter than petals, anthers oblong; rudimentary ovary subglobose, central part slightly retuse. Female flowers not known. Infructescences: cymes of order 1(or 2), 1(or 3)-fruited; fruiting pedicels 3-5(-8) mm; cymes of order 2: peduncles ca. 5 mm. Fruit globose, ca. 4 mm in diam.; persistent calyx explanate, 4- or 5-lobed, ciliate; persistent stigma slightly raised, discoid, 4-lobed; pyrenes 4(or 5), subglobose, 1.7-2 mm, 1.2-1.8 mm in diam., abaxially 3-striate, not sulcate, laterally smooth, endocarp leathery. Fl. and fr. Aug-Oct.

SW Fujian (Shanghang), Guangdong, Hainan (Baoting, Ledong), Taiwan (Taizhong, Xinzhu) [Japan (Ryukyu Islands)].

Dense forests; 100-1800 m.

Ilex hanceana Maximowicz f. goshiensis Yamamoto, nom. illeg. superfl.; I. hanceana f. rotundata Makino.