Vasilis Teodoridis:
Cornaceae | Cornus
21. Cornus capitata Wallich in Roxburgh; Fl. Ind. 1: 434. 1820.
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Cornus capitata
Credit: Harvard University Herbaria
Trees or shrubs; evergreen; 3–15(–20) m tall. Bark brown or blackish gray; young branches grayish green; pubescent with white appressed trichomes; old branches grayish brown; nearly glabrous. Flower buds globose; exposed; subtended by four small green; linear-lanceolate bracts; leaf buds exposed. Leaf blade grayish green on both surfaces; narrowly elliptic or oblong-lanceolate; 5–12 x 2–3.5(–4) cm; thinly leathery to leathery; abaxially densely pubescent with thick white appressed trichomes; scabrous; axils of veins often pitted or rarely with a cluster of trichomes; veins 3 or 4; base cuneate to broadly cuneate; apex acuminate to shortly caudate. Cymes globose; ca. 1.2 cm in diam.; 50–100-flowered; bracts white; obovate or broadly obovate; rarely orbicular; 3.5–6.2 x 1.5–5 cm. Calyx tube ca. 1.2 mm; hardly lobed to conspicuously 4-lobed; lobes rounded. Petals oblong; 3–4 mm. Styles cylindrical; ca. 1.5 mm; densely pubescent with white trichomes. Infructescences compressed or subglobose; 1.5–2.5 cm in diam.; pubescent with small white trichomes; purple red at maturity; peduncle (1.5–) 4–5(–8) cm; stout. Fl. May–Jul; fr. Sep–Nov.
Evergreen and mixed forests; 1000–3200 m. Guizhou; Sichuan; Xizang; Yunnan [Bhutan; India; Myanmar; Nepal].