Species: Eurya nitida

English Name: Shining Eurya

Chinese Name: 細齒葉柃

Family: Theaceae

Description:
Shrubs or trees, 2-5 m tall. Young branches grayish brown; current year branchlets yellowish green, slender, 2-ribbed, glabrous; terminal buds to 1 cm, glabrous. Petiole 2-5 mm, glabrous; leaf blade elliptic, oblong-elliptic, or obovate-oblong, (3-)4-6(-7) × 1.5-2.5 cm, thinly leathery to leathery, abaxially pale green to yellowish green, adaxially dark green and shiny, both surfaces glabrous, midvein abaxially elevated and adaxially slightly impressed, secondary veins 9-12 on each side of midvein, abaxially slightly visible, and adaxially obscure, base cuneate to rounded, margin closely serrulate, crenulate, or subentire, apex obtuse, acute, or shortly acuminate and sometimes with an emarginate tip. Flowers axillary, solitary or to 4 in a cluster. Pedicel 2-3 mm, slender, glabrous. Male flowers: bracteoles suborbicular, ca. 1 mm, glabrous; sepals suborbicular to ovate, 1.5-2.5 mm, submembranous, glabrous, apex rounded; petals obovate, 3.5-4 mm; stamens 14-20; anthers not locellate; pistillode glabrous. Female flowers: bracteoles and sepals similar to those of male flowers; petals oblong, 2-2.5 mm; ovary ovoid, glabrous, 3-loculed; style 1.5-3 mm, apically 3-lobed. Fruit bluish black when mature, globose, 3-4 mm in diam. Seeds brown, reniform to globose-reniform, shiny. Fl. Nov-Jan, fr. Jul-Sep.

Photos used under a Creative Commons license

References:

– Wu ZY, Raven PH, Hong DY (eds) (2007). Flora of China, Volume 12: Hippocastanaceae through Theaceae. Science Press, Beijing, and Missouri Bot Garden Press, St. Louis