Casearia velutina Bl.

Casearia velutina is treated here as a polymorphic species particularly variable in leaf shape, size, and indumentum. Lescot (Fl. Cambodge Laos Vietnam 11: 51. 1970) and Lai (FRPS 52(1): 71. 1999) recognized C. balansae as a separate species, with C. petelotii and C. villimba in synonymy. Sleumer (Blumea 30: 217-250. 1985) treated C. balansae as a synonym of C. velutina. The group requires further gatherings and a distribution-wide study.

Trees or shrubs, to 10 m tall; terminal bud densely pubescent, twig tips and branchlets densely to sparsely pubescent, hairs spreading, yellowish brown. Stipules broadly triangular-ovate, minute, ca. 1 mm, densely appressed pubescent, caducous early or later; petiole 5-15 mm, densely to sparsely pubescent, hairs spreading; leaf blade often drying blackish green or blackish brown, variable in shape and size, elliptic to oblong, rarely ovate, 7-20 × 4-8 cm, thickly papery, initially pubescent on both sides, very densely so beneath, both sides becoming more sparsely hairy or glabrous except for midvein and main veins, hairs semispreading to appressed, yellowish, long (0.5-1 mm); leaf lateral veins 8-12 pairs, base acute to rounded, sides convex to concave, often oblique, margin serrulate, apex acute to obtuse, contracting to an acumen of ca. 1 cm or less. Flowers (1 to) few to many in axillary sessile or subsessile glomerules. Pedicels 2-4 mm, extending to 5-6 mm in fruit, articulate, sparsely pubescent, hairs semiappressed; bracts ovate, ca. 1 mm or less, outside pubescent. Sepals 5, ovate, hooded, 2-3 mm, outside pubescent, hairs as for pedicels, apex acute or obtuse. Stamens 8, rarely 5-7; filament ca. 1.5 mm, puberulous throughout; anthers ovoid, ca. 0.4 mm. Disk lobes narrowly oblong, ca. 2/3 as long as filament, glabrous adaxially except at tip, abaxially pubescent at tip and margin. Ovary conic, very sparsely puberulous, hairs semiappressed; style short, 0.5-1 mm, glabrous; stigma globose, 3-lobed. Capsule broadly ellipsoid, to ca. 1.2 cm, fleshy, when dry pericarp blackish, with dense shallow warts, with fine longitudinal ridges marking valve margins, black shiny vesicles absent. Seeds ca. 8, when dry pale yellowish brown, ca. 5 mm, smooth, enveloped in a thin, fleshy, pale yellow partly fimbriate aril. Fl. Feb-Dec, fr. Apr-Jun.

Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Yunnan [Indonesia (Java, Sumatra), Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam].

Evergreen broad-leaved forests; 100-1800 m.

Casearia balansae Gagnepain; C. balansae var. cuneifolia Gagnepain; C. balansae var. subglabra S. Y. Bao; C. petelotii Merrill; C. villilimba Merrill.