Rhamnus leptophylla C. K. Schneid.

The entire plant is used medicinally.

Shrubs, rarely small trees, dioecious, to 5 m tall, spinose, divaricate. Branchlets opposite or subopposite, shiny, brown or yellow-brown, rarely purple-red, smooth, glabrous, terminating in a spine; buds small, glabrous. Leaves opposite or subopposite, or fascicled on short shoots; stipules linear, caducous; petioles 0.7-2 cm, adaxially canaliculate, glabrous or sparsely puberulent; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, obovate to obovate-elliptic, rarely elliptic or oblong, 3-8 × 2-5 cm, papery, abaxially distinctly bearded at vein axils, adaxially glabrous or sparsely hairy on midvein, lateral veins 3-5 pairs, prominent abaxially, impressed adaxially, base cuneate, margin crenate to serrate, apex shortly cuspidate to acuminate. Flowers unisexual, 4-merous. Pedicels 4-5 mm, glabrous. Petals present. Male flowers 10-20-fascicled on short shoots. Female flowers few- to 10-fascicled at apices of short shoots or in leaf axils of lower part of long shoots; rudimentary stamens minute; style 2-cleft to half. Drupe black at maturity, globose, 4-6 mm in diam., with persistent calyx tube at base and minute apical mucro, with 2 or 3 stones; fruiting pedicel 6-8(-10) mm. Seeds dark brownish, broadly obovoid, abaxially with margined furrow extending over 2/3-3/4 of length. Fl. Mar-May, fr. May-Oct.

Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang.

● Thickets, forest margins, valleys, slopes, roadsides; 1700-2600 m.

Rhamnus inconspicua Grubov.