Chenopodiaceae, Toona sinensis.

Scientific name: Eurya Muri Catadunn

Alias: thorns, hard-shelled firewood, separated from drugs.

Shrubs or small trees, 2-6 meters high, the whole plant is hairless; Bark dark brown or taupe, smooth; The shoots are cylindrical, stout, yellowish green, the branchlets are grayish brown or brown, and the terminal buds are hairless; The terminal bud is long and conical.

The leaves are leathery, slightly thick, oblong or oval, 5.5- 1 1.5 cm long and 2-4.3 cm wide, with a tapering tip, a wedge-shaped base, and sometimes a nearly wide wedge-shaped, with thin and blunt serrations on the edges, dark green on the upper side, yellow-green or light green on the lower side, and hairless on both sides. The midvein is concave on the upper side and convex on the lower side. Petiole is 4-5 mm long.

Flowers 1-5 clustered leaf axils, pedicels 1- 1.5 mm long, glabrous.

Male flower: 2 bracteoles, nearly round, about 65438 0 mm long; Sepals 5, leathery, suborbicular, 2-2.5 mm long, rounded at the top, with small tips or pits, glabrous outside, sometimes ciliated at the edge; Petals 5, white, oblong or oblong obovate, 4-5 mm long; Stamens 15-22, anthers with many cells, degenerated ovary glabrous.

Bracteoles and sepals of female flowers are the same as those of male flowers; Petals 5, white, ovate-lanceolate, about 3 mm long; Ovary spherical, 3-loculed, glabrous, style about 65438 0.5 mm long, 3-lobed at the top.

The fruit is spherical, 4-5 mm in diameter, and purple-black when it is mature; The seed kidney is round, slightly flat, reddish brown, shiny, and the surface is densely reticulate.

The flowering period is September-165438+1October, and the fruiting period is June-August of the following year.

Produced in southern Jiangsu, southern Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, central Guangdong, northern and southern Hong Kong, southeastern Hubei, eastern and southern Hunan, central Sichuan and northwestern Guizhou.

Mostly in hillside forests or forest-edge shrubs at an altitude of 350- 1300m.

This species is similar to E. macartneyi Champ in appearance, but the anther of the latter is not compartmentalized, with three styles and free leaves. After drying, the lower part is reddish brown, which is easy to distinguish.

Bark contains tannin, and baking gum can be extracted; Flowers are excellent nectar plants.

(Excerpted from Flora of China)

Photo photography: Chen