Ilex denticulata Wall.

Trees evergreen, ca. 12 m tall, glabrous throughout. Young branchlets subterete, longitudinally ridged, second year’s branchlets brownish or gray, minutely fissured, with flat deltoid leaf scars; terminal buds narrowly conical; bud scales papery, glabrous, not ciliate. Leaves on first to second year’s branchlets; petiole 1-1.3 cm, glabrous, abaxially rugose, adaxially narrowly sulcate or flat; leaf blade green, ovate-elliptic or elliptic-oblong, rarely obovate-oblong, 5-10 × 2.5-4 cm, leathery, both surfaces glabrous, midvein narrowly sulcate adaxially, lateral veins 6-9 pairs, and reticulate veins distinct abaxially, obscure adaxially, base obtuse or cuneate, margin densely irregularly denticulate-serrate, teeth black, apex obtuse or abruptly shortly acuminate. Male inflorescences: cymes of order 1 or 2, 1-3-flowered, pseudopaniculate, axillary on second year’s branchlets; rachis 4-14 mm; peduncles ca. 2 mm; bracts obovate, ca. 4 × 2-5 mm, apex acute; pedicels 2-3 mm; 1-flowered pedicels ca. 5 mm; bracteoles 2, median, deltoid; flowers 4-merous; calyx patelliform, ca. 2.5 mm in diam., 4-lobed, lobes deltoid, margin entire, apex acute or acuminate; corolla rotate, ca. 7 mm in diam., petals reflexed, oblong, ca. 3 × 1.5 mm, basally connate; stamens 4, ca. as long as petals, anthers ovoid, ca. 0.75 mm; rudimentary ovary globose, apex rounded and impressed. Female flowers not known. Infructescences: 1-fruited cymes, fasciculate or pseudoracemose; central axis 5-10 mm; fruiting pedicels 6-10 mm, glabrous or slightly puberulent. Fruit globose or depressed globose, 6-7 mm in diam., smooth; persistent stigma navel-like, often impressed, 4-lobed; persistent calyx explanate; pyrenes 4, oblong or ellipsoidal, ca. 4 mm, ca. 3 mm in diam., abaxially irregularly 3-striate and 2-sulcate, laterally rugose and pitted, endocarp stony. Fl. unknown, fr. Jul.

S Yunnan (Menghai) [India].

Mixed forests; ca. 2000 m.