Ilex lancilimba Merr.

Shrubs or trees, evergreen, 3-10 m tall, trunk to ca. 20 cm d.b.h. Bark gray-white, smooth; young branchlets longitudinally angular and sulcate, sulfur-colored curved pubescent; old branchlets gray, longitudinally rugose; leaf scars subcircular, raised, glabrescent; terminal buds ovoid-conical, apex acuminate; bud scales densely yellowish pubescent. Stipules caducous; petiole 1.5-2.5 cm, sparsely puberulent, distal half narrowly winged by decurrent leaf base; leaf blade abaxially greenish, opaque, adaxially dark green, shiny or opaque, lanceolate or narrowly oblong, 9-16 × 2-5 cm, leathery, midvein raised and pubescent when young abaxially, raised, flat, or impressed and glabrescent adaxially, lateral veins 10-16 pairs, slightly raised on both surfaces, anastomosing near margin, reticulate veins evident on both surfaces, base cuneate or obtuse, margin entire, slightly recurved, apex acuminate. Inflorescences: cymes or compound cymes, solitary, axillary, on leaves or scales of current year’s branchlets, yellowish pubescent; flowers 4-merous. Male inflorescences: compound cymes; peduncles 5-14 mm; cymules of order 3 or 4, secondary axis often well developed; pedicels 1.5-2 mm; calyx patelliform, ca. 3 mm in diam., 4-lobed, lobes broadly deltoid, ca. 1 mm, ca. 2 mm wide at base; petals ovate-oblong, 2.5-3 mm, basally slightly connate; stamens shorter than petals, anthers oblong; rudimentary ovary conical, minute. Female inflorescences: cymes of order 2 or 3, 3-7-flowered; peduncles ca. 2 mm; pedicels 1-2 mm; calyx and corolla as in male flowers, greenish white, 4- or 5-merous; staminodes ca. 1/2 as long as petals, sterile anthers cordate; ovary ovoid, ca. 2 mm in diam., stigma thickly discoid. Infructescences: cymes 1-fruited, sometimes 3-6-fruited, yellowish pubescent. Fruit red, globose, 1-1.2 cm in diam.; persistent calyx explanate, quadrangular; persistent stigma discoid, 4-lobed; pyrenes 4, oblong, ca. 9 mm, ca. 4 mm in diam., cross section broadly U-shaped, abaxially broadly sulcate, smooth, not striate, endocarp woody. Fl. Mar-May, fr. Sep-Nov.

Fujian (Taining), Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan.

● Forests or thickets in valleys; 300-1800 m.