Potato Bush

Glabrous plants have been recognized as var. glaber , but such forms occur sporadically throughout the range of the species and are of dubious taxonomic value.

Shrubs to 4 m tall, monoecious; branches brownish; young branchlets, leaves, and pedicels yellowish pubescent or puberulent or glabrous. Stipules subulate-lanceolate, brown, 1-3 mm, hard and spiny when dry; petiole 2-5 mm; leaf blade varying in shape, mostly elliptic to ovate, 1-5(-6.5) × 0.7-3 cm, membranous to papery, base obtuse to rounded, apex acute or obtuse to rounded; lateral veins 5-7 pairs, usually prominent on both surfaces. Inflorescence an axillary fascicle, rarely a cyme, with 2-10 male and 1 or 2 female flowers. Male flowers: pedicels delicate, 5-10 mm; sepals 5 or 6, in 2 series, ovate or obovate, unequal, 0.7-1.5 × 0.5-1.2 mm, entire; disk glands 5, scalelike, ca. 0.5 mm wide; stamens 5, erect, 3 with longer filaments coherent in a central column, 2 with shorter filaments, free; anthers triangular, longitudinally dehiscent. Female flowers: pedicels 4-8 mm, delicate; sepals 5 or 6, in 2 series, unequal, broadly ovate, 1-1.6 × 0.9-1.2 mm, puberulent inside at base; disk glands 5 or 6, oblong or obovate; ovary 4-12-celled, smooth; styles free, bifid at apex, lobes linear, revolute and connivent over top of ovary. Fruit a berry, globose to oblate, 4-6 mm wide, black and dark purplish at maturity, 4-12-celled, 8-16-seeded. Seeds trigonous, 1.6-2 mm, brown. Fl. Mar-Jun, fr. Jun-Oct. x = 13.

Tropical Africa, India, Himalaya (Kumaun to Sikkim), Ceylon, S.E. Asia, S. China, Malaysia.

Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan [Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; W Africa, NE Australia].

400-760 m

Open forests, scrub; 200-800 m.

Cicca microcarpa Bentham ; C. reticulata (Poiret) Kurz; Glochidion microphyllum Ridley; Kirganelia multiflora Baillon; K. reticulata (Poiret) Baillon; K. sinensis Baillon; Phyllanthus dalbergioides Wallich ex J. J. Smith; P. erythrocarpus Ridley; P. microcarpus (Bentham) Müller Argoviensis; P. multiflorus Poiret; P. multiflorus Willdenow (1805), not Poiret (1804); P. reticulatus var. glaber Müller Argoviensis; P. sinensis Müller Argoviensis; P. takaoensis Hayata.