Paliurus hirsutus Hemsl.

Evergreen, erect to climbing shrubs or medium-sized trees, to 20 m tall. Young branchlets, axillary buds, petioles, major leaf venation, pedicels, receptacles, and sepals ± densely brownish pubescent, mature branches glabrescent. Stipular spine 1, hooklike, recurved; petiole to 1.5 cm; leaf blade broadly ovate, ovate-elliptic, or suborbicular, 4.5-10.5 × 4-7 cm, papery or thickly papery, 3-veined from base, base obtuse to rounded or rarely cordate, often slightly oblique, margin serrulate or subentire, apex acute to acuminate. Flowers densely pubescent, in axillary cymes or cymose panicles. Calyx tube cup-shaped; lobes broadly deltoid, 1.5-1.6 × 1.4-1.5 mm. Petals spatulate, 1-5 × 1.4-1.5 mm. Stamens ca. as long as petals. Disk pentagonous, 5- or 10-lobed. Ovary 3-loculed; style deeply 3(or 4)-cleft. Drupe red or purple-red, cup-shaped, surrounded by an apically inserted, narrow, corky wing, 1-1.3 cm in diam., glabrous; fruiting pedicel 6-10 mm. Fl. Jun-Aug, fr. Aug-Oct.

Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu.

● Slopes, plains; below 1000 m.

Paliurus hirsutus var. trichocarpus C. Z. Gao; P. tonkinensis Pitard.