Ilex delavayi Franch.

Shrubs or trees, evergreen, 1-9 m tall, glabrous throughout. Branchlets gray, terete, glabrous or pubescent, longitudinally ridged, verruculose along ridges, or smooth or shallowly plicate-sulcate; leaf scars flat, deltoid-elliptic, lenticels absent; terminal buds conical, glabrous, unfolding at anthesis. Leaves on first to second year’s branchlets; petiole (5-)10-15 mm, abaxially rugose, adaxially shallowly sulcate, distal half narrowly winged by decurrent leaf base; leaf blade green, elliptic-lanceolate or obovate-elliptic, linear-lanceolate, elliptic, oblong, ovate-oblong, or oblong-elliptic, (2-)4-5(-8) × (0.7-)1-2(-2.5) cm, subleathery, both surfaces glabrous, midvein impressed adaxially, lateral veins 5-7 pairs, raised abaxially, impressed adaxially, anastomosing near margin, reticulate veins raised abaxially, impressed adaxially, base cuneate or acute, margin crenulate-serrate, apex obtuse or acute. Inflorescences: cymes, fasciculate, axillary on second year’s branchlets; flowers greenish, 4-merous. Male inflorescences: cymes of order 1 or 2, 1-3-flowered, fascicles often umbelliform, ± stalked; axis ca. 3.5 mm; bracts ovate, glabrous, apex acute; peduncles ca. 1 mm; pedicels 1-2 mm; bracteoles 2, subbasal; calyx patelliform, ca. 2 mm in diam., deeply 4-lobed, lobes ovate-deltoid, ca. 1 × 1.25 mm, glabrous, not ciliate, apex obtuse or acute; corolla rotate, ca. 5 mm in diam., petals 4, obovate, ca. 2 × 2 mm, basally slightly connate; stamens shorter than petals, anthers ovoid; rudimentary ovary globose, apex rounded. Female inflorescences: 1-flowered cymes, fascicles 2-5-flowered, pedicels 2-4(-6) mm; calyx as in male flowers; petals free, ovate, ca. 2 mm; staminodes ca. 1/2 as long as petals, sterile anthers cordate; ovary ovoid, ca. 2 mm, ca. 1.5 mm in diam., apex truncate, stigma discoid. Fruit red, globose, rarely depressed globose, 5(-7) mm in diam.; persistent calyx explanate, quadrangular, 2-2.5(-3.5) mm in diam.; persistent stigma thickly discoid, rarely subcapitate, 4-lobed; pyrenes 4, oblong, 3.5-4.5 mm, 2-2.5 mm in diam., abaxially convex or slightly flattened, palmately striate and sulcate, laterally rugose striate-sulcate, endocarp woody. Fl. Mar-Jul, fr. Aug-Nov.

Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [N Myanmar].

Forests, mixed woods, shrub forests, azalea forests, hill slopes; 2000-3700 m.