Polyspora chrysandra (Cowan) Hu ex B. M. Barthol. & T. L. Ming

Shrubs or small trees, 3-6 m tall. Young branches grayish brown; current year branchlets slender, appressed pubescent; terminal buds small, yellow sericeous. Petiole 3-5 mm, appressed pubescent; leaf blade obovate-elliptic to long obovate, 6-11 × 2.5-4.5 cm, thinly leathery, adaxially dark green and shiny, abaxially pale green and glabrous or basally sparsely pubescent, midvein abaxially elevated and adaxially impressed, secondary veins obscure on both surfaces, base cuneate and decurrent, margin serrate, apex obtuse and emarginate. Flowers axillary, solitary or 3-5 in a short raceme, 4-5 cm in diam. Pedicel 2-3 mm; bracteoles 6 or 7, caducous. Sepals 5, suborbicular, ca. 1 cm in diam., leathery, outside basally white farinose-sericeous but apically purplish brown and glabrous, inside glabrous, margin membranous. Petals 5, white, suborbicular, ca. 3 cm in diam., basally connate for ca. 3 mm, apex emarginate. Stamens ca. 1.5 cm; filaments glabrous, basally adnate to petals. Ovary ovoid, white tomentose, 5-loculed; style ca. 1.2 cm, basally white tomentose. Capsule oblong-cylindric, 3-3.5 × ca. 1.5 cm, apex acute; pericarp woody; pedicel to 1 cm. Seeds together with wing ca. 2 × 0.5 mm. Fl. Nov-Dec, fr. Aug-Sep.

N Guizhou, SE Sichuan, Yunnan [N Myanmar].

Forests or thickets; 1100-2400 m.

Gordonia chrysandra Cowan, Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh 16: 184. 1931.