Pauper's Tea

An evergreen shrub with stiff, slender branches, sometimes terminating in thorns. Leaves ovate, elliptic or sub-orbicular, coriaceous or sub-coriaceous, minutely serrate, glabrous, or densely white tomentose beneath, 1-4 x .5-2 cm, 3-4 pairs of lateral nerves, petiole 2-4 mm long, stipules minute, dark brown. Inflorescence of interrupted spikes and panicles. Flowers c. 3 mm across, sessile or shortly stalked. Calyx saucer shaped, 1.5 mm long, lobes bigger than hypanthinum, c. 1 mm long, ovate. Petals obovate, c. 1 mm long, emarginate. Fruit 4-5 mm long, black or dark brown, ovoid to globose, 3-lobed, edible. Seeds mostly 3.

Shrubs scandent or erect, to 3 m tall, armed. Branchlets slender, alternate or subopposite, brownish, terminating in a spine, finely tomentose when young. Leaves opposite at basal nodes to alternate; petiole 2-7 mm, puberulent; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially green, usually elliptic, oblong, or ovate-elliptic, rarely ovate or nearly orbicular, 2-4.5 × 0.7-2.5 cm, papery, abaxially glabrous or pubescent on veins, sometimes tomentose and glabrescent, adaxially glabrous, lateral veins 3-5(-7) pairs, conspicuously prominent abaxially, base rounded or subcordate, margin serrulate, apex acute, obtuse, or rounded. Flowers yellow, sessile, fragrant, usually 2- to few fascicled in terminal or axillary lax spikes or paniculate spikes; rachis 2-5 cm, sparsely puberulent. Calyx tube sparsely pubescent, shallowly cup-shaped; sepals triangular, ca. 1 mm. Petals spatulate, shorter than sepals, apex 2-fid, often reflexed. Disk fleshy, glabrous, distinctly thickened around ovary. Ovary 3-loculed, with 1 ovule per locule; style very short; stigma 3-fid. Drupe black or purple-black at maturity, subglobose to obovoid, ca. 5 mm in diam., with 1-3 pyrenes; mesocarp fleshy, sour-tasting. Seeds flat, emarginate at both ends. Fl. Jul-Sep, fr. Mar-May of following year.

Distribution: Pakistan, India, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iran, China, Arabia, N.E. Africa.

Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [India, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam].

Mountain forests, thickets, hills; below 2100 m.