Bushy shrub, ½-1.3 m, with spreading branches; branchlets 2(-4)-lined when young, eventually becoming terete. Leaves sessile or with petiole up to 1½ mm, 2-4½ by 1-1¾ cm, elliptic or oblong to oblanceolate, apex obtuse or minutely apiculate to rounded, base cuneate to rounded or subcordate paler below; 4-6 main lateral veins, with intramarginal vein and conspicuous dense reticulate venation; glands all pale, punctate. Inflorescence 1-c. 15-flowered, terminal (1-3 nodes), corymbose. Flowers 3-5 cm ø, plane or convex; buds ovoid, subacute to acute. Sepals 4½-10 by 1½-3 mm, free, imbricate, narrowly elliptic or narrowly oblong to lanceolate, acute or more rarely obtuse to rounded, entire, midrib invisible or almost so; spreading or ascending in flower and fruit; glands all pale, linear. Petals golden-yellow to lemon-yellow, 2-3 by 1½-1½ cm, obovate, entire, caducous; apiculus variable, acute to rounded or absent; glands all pale, linear. Stamen fascicles 5, 18-28 mm long, almost equalling petals, each with 25-35 stamens, caducous; anthers bright yellow, gland amber. Ovary 2½-4 mm, broadly ovoid to subglobose; styles 5, 12-18 mm, c. 3½-5 times as long as the ovary, united almost to the apex; stigma small; placentas 5, axile. Capsule 6-10 mm, broadly ovoid or ovoid-conic to subglobose. Seeds dark reddish-brown, cylindric, curved, narrowly carinate, shallowly linear-reticulate to linear-foveolate.
Scrub in gorges at elevations around 500 metres. Mountain slopes, roadsides and thickets in dry habitats from sea level to 200 metres in lowland provinces, but up to 1,500 metres in Sichuan.
More
Scrub in gorges around 500 metres. Mountain slopes, roadsides and thickets in dry habitats from sea level to 200 metres in lowland provinces, but up to 1500 metres in Sichuan.
Only as a cultivated ornamental, largely in estates in hill stations up to c. 1800 m. Not quite hardy in temperate areas.
Home