短柱油茶 duan zhu you cha

Shrubs 1-3.5 m tall, rarely trees 5-8 m tall. Young branches grayish brown; current year branchlets purplish brown, gray pubescent to hirtellous. Petiole 3-5 mm, pubescent; leaf blade elliptic, obovate-elliptic, obovate-oblong, or obovate, 1.5-5.5 × 0.7-3 cm, thinly leathery, abaxially pale green and sparsely villous along midvein, adaxially dark green and puberulent along midvein, epidermis verruculose, midvein raised on both surfaces, secondary veins 5 or 6 on each side of midvein and obscure on both surfaces but adaxially sometimes visible to slightly impressed, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, margin crenulate-denticulate, apex blunt to rounded. Flowers axillary, solitary, 1.5-2.5(-3) cm in diam., subsessile. Bracteoles and sepals 7-8(-10), caducous, outside gray pubescent along median portion, inside glabrous, margin ciliolate; outer bracteoles and sepals lunate to semiorbicular, 1-2 mm; inner bracteoles and sepals obovate to suborbicular, 5-9 mm. Petals 5-7, white or pink, nearly distinct, obovate to obovate-spatulate, 1-2.5(-3) × 0.4-1(-1.5) cm, apex retuse to deeply emarginate. Stamens 5-10 mm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for 2-4 mm. Ovary globose, 1.5-2 mm in diam., yellowish tomentose; styles 3, 2-7 mm, glabrous, distinct near base or basally connate and only apically 3-parted. Capsule subglobose, 1-1.8 cm in diam., usually 1-loculed with 1 seed; pericarp ca. 1 mm thick. Seed brown, globose, 1-1.5 cm in diam. Fl. Oct-Dec, fr. Sep-Oct. 2n = 30*.

● Forests, thickets; 200-1100 m. S Anhui, Fujian, NW Guangdong, NE Guangxi, Guizhou, S Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Taiwan, Zhejiang.