Ilex tsoi Merr. & Chun

Shrubs or small trees, deciduous, 4-8 m tall; bark gray-black. Branchlets castaneous, yellowish brown, or dark gray, glabrous, lenticels elliptic, conspicuous; spur branchlets rugose, with bud scales and leaf scars, glabrous. Stipules persistent, broadly deltoid, minute; petiole 6-10 mm, adaxially sulcate, glabrous; leaf blade abaxially greenish, adaxially dark green, ovate or ovate-elliptic, (2.5-)5-10 × (1-)3-5 cm, papery, abaxially glabrous, adaxially puberulent, midvein impressed adaxially, lateral veins 8-10 pairs, slightly raised on both surfaces, anastomosing near margin, or nearly obscure or inconspicuous on both surfaces, reticulate veins evident on both surfaces, base rounded or obtuse, margin finely sharply serrate, apex acuminate. Male inflorescences: 1-flowered cymes, solitary or fasciculate, fascicles 2- or 3-flowered, axillary on leaves of current year’s branchlets or on scales of spur branchlets; pedicels 3-4 mm, glabrous, 6-merous; calyx patelliform, ca. 4 mm in diam., deeply 6-lobed, lobes deltoid or ovate, unequal in size, ca. 1 × 1 mm, apex acute, rarely rounded, ciliate; corolla rotate, 6-7 mm in diam., petals oblong, ca. 2 × 1.5 mm, basally slightly connate, apex rounded, very minutely ciliate; stamens shorter than petals, anthers oblong; rudimentary ovary pulvinate, center flat. Female inflorescences: 1-flowered cymes, solitary, axillary to scales or rarely leaves; pedicels 1-3 mm, glabrous; calyx and corolla as in male flowers; staminodes very minute, ca. 1/5 as long as petals, sterile anthers cordate; ovary ovoid, ca. 2 mm in diam., stigma thickly discoid, convex. Fruit purple-black, globose, 6-8 mm in diam.; persistent calyx explanate, stellate; persistent stigma thickly discoid or capitate, convex; fruiting pedicel 1-3 mm; pyrenes 6, oblong, ca. 5 mm, ca. 2.5 mm in diam., abaxially longitudinally striate and sulcate, laterally reticulately striate and sulcate, endocarp bony. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Jun-Aug.

Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Zhejiang.

● Dense or sparse forests, thickets in valleys, roadsides; 300-2000 m.