Rhamnus coriophylla Hand.-Mazz.

Shrubs or small trees, dioecious, 3-4 m tall, unarmed. Young branches glabrous; branchlets purple-brown, with numerous tuberculate lenticels. Leaves alternate; petiole red when dry, 3-7 mm, glabrous; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially deep green, shiny, elliptic or oblong-elliptic, 3-10(-14) × 1.5-4.5(-5.5) cm, leathery, abaxially barbellate in axils of veins only, adaxially glabrous, lateral veins 5-8 pairs, prominent on both surfaces except midvein, base subrounded or broadly cuneate, margin often revolute when dry, inconspicuously serrulate or conspicuously sharply serrate, apex shortly acuminate or acuminate, rarely obtuse or rounded, emarginate. Inflorescences 1-3 cm, glabrous or sparsely puberulent. Flowers green, unisexual, 5-merous, in rather small, axillary cymose racemes. Sepals narrowly triangular, thick, abaxially sparsely puberulent, adaxially thickened at apex. Petals absent. Pedicels ca. 1 mm. Female flowers with rudimentary stamens; ovary oblate, 3-loculed; style short, 3-lobed, free. Drupe purple-red at maturity, obovoid-globose, 3-5 mm in diam., with persistent calyx tube at base, with 3 stones; fruiting pedicel ca. 2 mm. Seeds 3. Fl. Jun-Aug, fr. Aug-Dec.

Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan.

● Forests and thickets on limestone slopes, roadsides; ca. 800 m.