1. CORNACEAE (山茱萸科)
2. Cornus
3. Cornus elliptica (尖叶四照花 )

Trees or shrubs, evergreen, 4–12 m tall. Bark gray or grayish brown; young branches grayish green, typically pubescent with white appressed trichomes, rarely tomentose; old branches grayish brown, nearly glabrous. Flower buds globose, exposed, subtended by 4 small green bracts. Leaf buds subtending flower buds, covered by small triangular to lanceolate scales. Leaf blade grayish green on both surfaces, oblong-elliptic or obovate-elliptic to lanceolate, 7–9(–12) × 2–4(–5) cm, thinly to thickly leathery, densely pubescent with white appressed trichomes, scabrous, rarely tomentose, axils of veins sometimes with aggregated white raised soft trichomes, veins 3 or 4, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, apex acuminate-caudate. Cymes globose, 0.8–1.2 cm in diam., 55–80(–95)-flowered; bracts yellowish, turning white, narrowly ovate to obovate, 2.5–5 × 0.9–2.2 cm. Calyx tube 0.7–1 mm, truncate to slightly 4-lobed. Petals ovate, ca. 2.8 × 1.5 mm. Style cylindrical, ca. 1.5 mm, densely pubescent with white trichomes. Infructescence globose, 1.5–2.5 cm in diam., pubescent with white appressed trichomes, red at maturity; peduncle 5.5–10 cm, slender. Fl. Jun–Jul, fr. Oct–Nov.

Forests, slopes, streamsides; 300–2200 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan.

The young branches, leaves abaxially, and bracts are all pubescent with white, appressed, fine trichomes. The sweet, ripe fruit is edible.

Cornus angustata (Chun) T. R. Dudley (Phytologia 77: 428. 1995) was based on C. kousa var. angustata Chun (Sunyatsenia 1: 285. 1934), not on the earliest available name at the rank of species, Cynoxylon ellipticum Pojarkova.

The combination Dendrobenthamia elliptica (Pojarkova) H. Yu (Ann. Bot. Fennici 43: 315. 2006) was made after publication of the family treatment for the Flora of China.