Symplocos ramosissima - Many-Branched Sapphire Berry

Many-Branched Sapphire Berry is a shrub or small tree, with branchlets purplish, hairless or velvet-hairy. Flowers are borne in racemes 1.5-3 cm long, often from lower leafless axils, velvet-hairy. Flower-stalks are about 2 mm. Flowers are 3-5 mm, petals white, oblong-elliptic, stamens 30-40. Sepals are broadly ovate, about 1 mm, nearly hairless, margin ciliolate. Disc hairless, with 5 glands. Leaf-stalk are 6-12 mm; leaf blade narrowly elliptic to elliptic, 6-12 x 2-4 cm, membranous, both surfaces hairless, base wedge-shaped to rounded, margin glandular toothed, tip tapering with a tail, lateral veins 4-10 pairs. Drupes are green to yellowish brown, blue-black at maturity, ellipsoid, 9-12 x 4-5 mm, finely velvet-hairy, tip with persistent spreading sepals. Many-Branched Sapphire Berry is is found in mixed forests, at altitudes of 1000-2600 m, in the Himalayas, from Kumaon to East Himalaya, S. China and Indo-China. Flowering: April-May.