Phyllanthus sootepensis Craib

Shrubs 0.3-2 m tall, monoecious, glabrous throughout; stem gray-brown; branches terete, branchlets alternate or 2- or 3-fascicled on short shoots, delicate, 5-15 cm. Leaves distichous; stipules lanceolate, ca. 2 mm, brown; petiole ca. 1 mm; leaf blade broadly elliptic, 5-17 × 4-8 mm, papery, base rounded or obtuse, margin slightly revolute, brownish when dry, apex acute; lateral veins 4-6 pairs, bifurcate at apex. Inflorescences axillary, unisexual, proximal axils with fascicles of male flowers, distal axils with solitary female flowers. Male flowers: pedicels filamentous, 4-12 mm; sepals 4, broadly ovate, ca. 1.5 × 1 mm, margin erose or irregularly serrulate; disk glands 4, elliptic; stamens 4, filaments connate into a short column. Female flowers: pedicels delicate, 7-15(-20) mm; sepals 6, obovate to orbicular, 1.2-2(-3.8) × 0.7-1.3(-2.5) mm, margin obscurely erose or subentire, reflexed and persistent in fruit; disk glands 6, as high as middle of ovary; ovary globose; styles 3, bifid at apex. Fruiting pedicels 1-1.5(-2.5) cm; capsule globose, ca. 3 mm in diam., 3-celled. Seeds trigonous, ca. 1.5 × 1 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Oct.

S Yunnan [Thailand].

Montane scrub, wastelands; 500-1300 m.