Siebold & Zucc.
Description
Symplocos lucida is a broadly distributed evergreen of eastern and southern Asia, occurring from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan through Hong Kong, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia to the Himalayan countries of Nepal, India and Bhutan; its more than 413 GBIF records reflect this wide range, with the United States accessions cultivated or herbarium-based. It grows in evergreen broad-leaved and mixed mid-montane forests, on forest margins and shrubby slopes, generally between about 1500 and 2800 m. The photographed tree at Phobjika in central Bhutan at 2450 m in October illustrates its occurrence in cool, humid temperate forest of the eastern Himalaya.
It is an evergreen shrub or small tree with smooth grey bark and glabrous young shoots. The alternate, leathery leaves are elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, glossy (whence lucida) and dark green above, with a serrate to crenate margin and a short petiole. The flowers are small, white and fragrant, borne in short axillary spikes or racemes; each has a five-lobed calyx and corolla and numerous stamens fused in fascicles at the base. The fruit is a small, ovoid to oblong drupe, dark blue-black or purplish when ripe, crowned by the persistent calyx and enclosing a single hard stone.
Symplocos is the sole genus of the Symplocaceae, a pantropical to warm-temperate family of some hundreds of species centred on Asia. S. lucida belongs to a taxonomically complex aggregate, and its leaves and bark have a long history of use as a mordant (aluminium-accumulating) source in natural dyeing. Widespread and ecologically plastic, it is not considered threatened, though its forest habitats face regional pressure from logging and land conversion.
Author: Siebold & Zucc. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Japan, Symplocaceae revision (Nooteboom monograph)