Gaultheria leucocarpa Blume

var. cumingiana (S.Vidal) T.Z.Hsu

This species bears some resemblance to var. yunnanensis, but the leaves are smaller and more slenderly pointed, the stems sparsely clad when young with long, spreading hairs, and the inflorescences shorter. The mature fruits are purplish black. It was introduced from Formosa but is of wide distribution in S.E. Asia. In Flora Malesiana recognised as f. cumingiana (Vidal) Sleumer.

var. yunnanensis (Franch.) T.Z.Hsu

An evergreen shrub 3 to 6 ft high; young shoots and leaves not downy. Leaves ovate-lanceolate, rounded or slightly heart-shaped at the base, tapered to a very slender, slightly curved apex, finely and regularly toothed, 2 to 41⁄2 in. long, 1⁄2 to 13⁄4 in. wide, dark glossy green, prominently net-veined, of stiff, rather hard texture; stalk 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 in. long. Flowers produced in slender axillary racemes 2 to 3 in. long, carrying twelve to twenty or more blossoms, white or yellowish, the broadly bell-shaped corolla 1⁄8 in. long; anthers yellow; ovary shaggy. Fruits globose, 1⁄4 in. wide, purplish black, ripe in August.

Native of S.W. China. Cultivated at Edinburgh and raised there, no doubt, from seeds collected by Forrest, who describes the bark, foliage, and all parts of the plant as strongly aromatic with a pungent pleasant odour, and the flowers as being fragrant. It makes graceful shoots 1 to 2 ft long in a season and the racemes spring from the leaf-axils of the terminal half during the following May.

For a detailed account of this species see Journ. R.H.S., Vol. 65, pp. 319–320.