Gang Mei Gen

Ilex asprella is a deciduous to semi-evergreen shrub of the Aquifoliaceae family growing 1 to 3 m tall, with slender greyish branches that are sparsely covered in small lenticels and often somewhat scabrous. Leaves are alternate, papery, ovate to elliptic, 2 to 6 cm long, with finely serrated margins and short petioles; the lower leaf surface bears small dark glandular dots. The plant is dioecious; small white four-merous flowers appear in spring, the staminate ones in fascicles and the pistillate ones solitary or paired in leaf axils. Fruits are globose drupes about 5 to 7 mm in diameter, ripening from green to black, containing four pyrenes. The species is native to broad-leaved forests and thickets in southern China, Taiwan, the Ryukyus, and northern Indochina.