Botanical name: Sageretia thea    Family: Rhamnaceae (Ber family)

Chinese Sweet-Plum is an evergreen shrub with stiff, slender branches, sometimes terminating in thorns. Leaves are ovate, elliptic or nearly round, leathery or nearly leathery, minutely sawtoothed, hairless, or densely white woolly beneath, 1-4 x 0.5-2 cm, 3-4 pairs of lateral nerves, leaf-stalk 2-4 mm long, stipules minute, dark brown. Flowers are borne in interrupted spikes and panicles. Flowers are about 3 mm across, stalkless or shortly stalked. Calyx is saucer shaped, 1.5 mm long, sepals bigger than the sepal cup, about 1 mm long, ovate. Petals are obovate, about 1 mm long, notched. Fruit is 4-5 mm long, black or dark brown, ovoid to spherical, 3-lobed, edible. Seeds are mostly 3. Chinese Sweet-Plum is found in Pakistan, India, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iran, China, Arabia, N.E. Africa. In the Himalayas, it is found in Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, at altitudes up to 2100 m. Flowering: July-September.

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The flower labeled Chinese Sweet-Plum is ...