BORAGINACEAE. — EHRETIA 365 



Mengtsze, woods, alt. 1500-1800 m., A. Henry (Nos. 10515, 10548, 

 10548", 10548^; tree 6 m. tall, flowers white, fragrant, fruit yellow); 

 Tali Range, lat. 25° 40', alt. 2600-3000 m., on margins of thickets, 

 G. i^orres^ (No. 4769). Kwangtung: Hainan, near Hoihow, alt. 

 100 m., March 25, 1905 (Herb. Hongk. Bot. Gard. No. 2183). 

 Kianghuai: Nanking, June 3, 1915, F. N. Meyer (No. 1415); For- 

 ^mosa, without locality, 1864, R. Oldham (No. 347); Takow, A. Henry 

 (No. 313; shrub 1-2 m.); Bankinsing, A. Henry (Nos. 190, 456; tree 

 6 m. tall); South Cape, A. Henry (No. 323; tree 4 m., fruit yellow). 



This tree is very common in warm, rocky valleys throughout western Hupeh and 

 in Szech'uan from river level up to 1500 m. altitude. It would also appear to be 

 plentiful in Yunnan and other warm parts of China and in Formosa. In Japan it 

 has been reported from the island of Shikoku, but I did not meet with it there. 

 At its best it is a tree some 15 m. tall, with a trunk 2 m. in girth, but usually it is 

 only about half that size. The bark is pale gray and fissured ; the branches, which 

 are relatively stout, often somewhat tortuous, spread to form a rather broad flat- 

 tened crown. The leaves are always scabrid on the upper surface, but often this 

 character is marked by the presence of a covering of soft, appressed hairs, which 

 however more or less completely disappear toward autumn. The flowers vary 

 somewhat in size and are white and rather overpoweringly fragrant; the fruit 

 when ripe is yellowish, globose, apiculate and often as much as 1.5 cm. in diameter. 

 This plant varies greatly in degree of pubescence. In Forrest's No. 4769 both sur- 

 faces of the leaves, the peduncle and branches of the inflorescence, the calyx and 

 the outside of the corolla are clothed with a soft pale gray pubescence, while my 

 Nos. 3554 and 3554*' are nearly glabrous. These extremes look very different, but 

 in the series of specimens before me is every conceivable intermediate condition, 

 and I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by attempting to sepa- 

 rate the extreme forms. The inflorescence varies in size and may be loosely or 

 densely branched and as a character is of no importance in this species. I suspect 

 that this plant is more or less polygamo-dioecious, and it is worthy of note that all 

 the fruiting specimens I have seen have the leaves pubescent on the under side and 

 many of them slightly so above. Wright, when establishing his E. corylifolia, 

 overlooked the fact that the scabrid character of the leaves was merely hidden by 

 a soft tomentum. 



The colloquial name for this tree in Hupeh is Tzu-kang, and the wood, which is 

 light, tough and strong, makes the best carrying-poles, which are commonly used 

 by the people for carrying loads everywhere in central and western China. 



A picture of this tree will be found under No. 0345 of the collection of my pho- 

 tographs. 



