Ilex elmerrilliana S. Y. Hu

Shrubs or small trees, evergreen, 2-7 m tall; bark gray- brown. Current year’s branchlets red-brown, longitudinally angular and ridged, glabrous; second and third year’s branchlets gray-brown, slightly stout, longitudinally fissured, lenticels elliptic, numerous but inconspicuous; leaf scars slightly raised, semicircular; terminal buds narrowly conical, bud scales loose, glabrous, ciliate. Stipules deltoid, minute, glabrous; petiole 4-8 mm, adaxially narrowly sulcate, glabrous; leaf blade adaxially deep green, shiny, elliptic or oblong-elliptic, 5-9 × 2-3.5(-6.5) cm, thickly leathery, both surfaces glabrous, midvein impressed adaxially, lateral veins and reticulate veins obscure on both surfaces, base cuneate, obtuse, or rounded, margin entire, sometimes revolute, apex acuminate or shortly obtusely pointed. Inflorescences: cymes, fasciculate, axillary on second or current year’s branchlets; bracts ovate, glabrous. Male inflorescences: cymes of order 1 or 2, 1-3-flowered; pedicels 5-10 mm, glabrous; bracteoles 2, subbasal; flowers white, 5-8-merous; calyx patelliform, ca. 3.5 mm in diam., lobes deltoid, not ciliate; corolla rotate, 6-7 mm in diam., petals oblong, ca. 3.5 × 2.5 mm, not ciliate, basally slightly connate; stamens ca. as long as petals, anthers ovoid-oblong; rudimentary ovary conical, apex obscurely lobed. Female inflorescences: 1-flowered cymes; pedicels 4-6 mm, glabrous or puberulent, base bracteolate; calyx as in male flowers; petals free, oblong, ca. 2 mm; staminodes ca. 1/2 as long as petals, sterile anthers sagittate; ovary subglobose, ca. 1 mm in diam., style evident, stigma capitate. Fruit red, globose, 4-5 mm in diam.; fruiting pedicel 5-10 mm, glabrous or puberulent; persistent calyx explanate, ca. 4 mm in diam., lobes acute; persistent style evident, ca. 0.5 mm, stigma capitate; pyrenes 6 or 7, oblong, ca. 3.5 mm, ca. 1.5 mm in diam., smooth, abaxially with a single slender ridge, slightly branched toward lower end, endocarp leathery. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Jul-Nov.

S Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan (Junlian), Zhejiang.

● Evergreen broad-leaved forests, shrubby areas, forest margins; (200-)500-1500 m.

Ilex subrotundifolia C. J. Qi & Q. Z. Lin (1999), not Steyermark (1952).