''Zanthoxylum liboense'' (Chinese: 荔波花椒 (Pinyin: lì bō huā jiāo) is a plant in the

Rutaceae The Rutaceae is a family, commonly known as the rueRUTACEAE
in BoDD – Botanical Derm ...

family.

Description

''Z. liboense'' is a

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

or climbing vine that reaches 1.5 meters high. The branchlets and leaf shafts have many hooks and short spines. Its biennial branches are brown-black with fine longitudinal wrinkles and short hairs. The leaf shafts are round and pubescent with the

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

shaft and petiole. The leaves have 5-9 leaflets. The leaflets are nearly opposite or alternate, thin leathery, entire, ovoid or elliptical, 6–8 cm long, 2.5-3.5 cm wide, round base,

acuminate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular o ...

or short apex at the top, symmetrical on both sides, the back of the leaf is short-haired. The midrib is flat on the leaf surface, while the upper half is slightly concave, puberulent. Leaflets have 10 lateral veins on each side -13; small petioles are 2–5 mm long. The flowers have not been seen.

Infructescence Infructescence (fruiting head) is defined as the ensemble of fruits derived from the ovaries of an inflorescence. It usually retains the size and structure of the inflorescence. In some cases, infructescences are similar in appearance to simple fru ...

axillary, 3–4 cm long, the fruit sequence axis is slender than the petiole; the fruit stalk is 6–10 mm long; each fruit is composed of 4

lobules In anatomy, a lobe is a clear anatomical division or extension of an organ (as seen for example in the brain, lung, liver, or kidney) that can be determined without the use of a microscope at the gross anatomy level. This is in contrast to the mu ...

, densely pubescent when young, and sparsely hairs when mature. The diameter of a single branch is 7–8 mm, and the oil spot is not obvious. The awn tip on the top side is 1-1.5 mm long, and it is dark brown and black when dried; the seed diameter is 5–6 mm. Fruiting period from August to September.

Habitat

It is native to Libo,

Guizhou Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to t ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. It is found in the shaded forests or bushes of valleys at an altitude of about 730 meters.

References

liboense {{Rutaceae-stub