DC.
Description
Saurauia napaulensis is a subtropical tree or large shrub widely distributed through the southern Himalaya and Southeast Asia, with abundant GBIF occurrences in China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. It is a frequent component of moist subtropical broad-leaved forest, secondary forest, ravines and stream sides, generally between 600 and 2,100 m. The photographed individual was recorded at Zhemgang in central Bhutan at about 1,200 m in October, within the warm mid-hill belt where the species is a conspicuous understorey and gap-colonising tree.
The plant is a small evergreen tree, typically with stout twigs and young parts clothed in scaly or bristly indumentum characteristic of the genus. The leaves are large, alternate, oblanceolate to elliptic, leathery, with serrate margins and prominent lateral venation, the lower surface bearing scattered scales or appressed setae. The flowers are borne in branched axillary panicles; each is five-merous with white to pink, somewhat cup-shaped petals, numerous stamens, and several distinct or basally united styles. The fruit is a small, fleshy, depressed-globose, greenish to whitish berry containing many minute seeds, attractive to birds and other animal dispersers.
Saurauia is the only genus of Actinidiaceae with a wide Old World tropical distribution, the family also containing the kiwifruit genus Actinidia, and the scaly indumentum and many-styled flowers are diagnostic. Saurauia napaulensis is among the most common and widespread Asian species, used locally for fuel, fodder and edible fruit. It is abundant, regenerates readily in disturbed ground, and is not of conservation concern.
Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 12 (Actinidiaceae), Grierson & Long: Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Hunter: Revision of the Asian species of Saurauia