Rhamnus esquirolii Lév.

Shrubs, often scandent, dioecious, 3-5 m tall, unarmed. Branchlets brown, with inconspicuous tuberculate lenticels, puberulent. Stipules subulate, persistent; petiole 3-11 mm, rarely to 15 mm, densely or sparsely puberulent; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially deep green, shiny, narrowly elliptic, oblanceolate-elliptic, or narrowly oblong, 5-19 × 1.7-6 cm, papery, abaxially glabrous or scattered grayish puberulent on veins, or barbate in vein axils, adaxially glabrous, lateral veins 6-8 pairs, prominent abaxially, impressed adaxially, base rounded or cuneate, margin flat or ± revolute, serrulate or inconspicuously so, apex acuminate to long acuminate, rarely acute. Flowers unisexual, 5-merous, usually few in 1-3 cm axillary, cymose racemes; bracts leaflike, to 4 cm; rachis, pedicels, and flowers puberulent. Pedicels 1-3 mm. Sepals triangular, apex acute. Petals small, caducous. Male flower with rudimentary pistil. Female flowers with minute, rudimentary stamens; ovary globose, 3-loculed; style 3-fid or cleft to half. Drupe purple-red, turning black at maturity, obovoid-globose, 4-5 mm in diam., with persistent calyx tube at base, with 3 stones. Seeds obovoid-oblong, abaxially with a margined furrow extending over nearly entire length. Fl. May-Jul, fr. Aug-Nov.

Guangxi, Guizhou, W Hubei, NW Sichuan, S Yunnan.

● Dense forests, forest margins, understories of forests and thickets, thickets in valleys; 400-1800 m.