Ilex cupreonitens C. Y. Wu ex Y. R. Li

Trees evergreen, 5-6 m tall, glabrous throughout. Young branchlets castaneous, terete, longitudinally angular and sulcate; older than second year’s branchlets with raised, elliptic, paler lenticels; leaf scars slightly raised, crescent-shaped; terminal buds narrowly conical, glabrous. Petiole 1-1.2 cm, abaxially rugose, adaxially deeply sulcate; leaf blade adaxially deep olivaceous, oblong-elliptic, 6-12 × 2.5-4 cm, thinly leathery, midvein impressed adaxially, lateral veins 8-10 pairs, raised abaxially, slightly raised adaxially, anastomosing near margin, reticulate veins raised abaxially, rather evident adaxially, base obtuse to subrounded, margin shallowly serrulate, apex long acuminate. Flowers not known. Infructescences: 1-fruited cymes, fasciculate, axillary; fruiting pedicels 1-2 mm; bracteoles 2, basal, ovate-deltoid, ciliate. Fruit globose, ca. 5 mm in diam., longitudinally angular and sulcate when dry; persistent calyx explanate, ca. 3 mm in diam., 4-lobed, lobes suborbicular; persistent stigma thickly discoid; pyrenes 4, ellipsoidal, ca. 4 mm, ca. 3 mm in diam., abaxially obscurely longitudinally striate and sulcate, laterally obscurely striate and sulcate, endocarp bony. Fl. unknown, fr. Aug-Oct.

SE Yunnan (Wenshan).

● Mixed forests, mountains; 1800-2200 m.