白毛蕊茶 bai mao rui cha

Shrubs or trees, 1-5 m tall. Year-old branchlets glabrescent; current year branchlets slender, yellow pubescent. Petiole 3-5 mm, pubescent; leaf blade oblong to oblong-lanceolate, 10-12.5 × 2.5-3.8 cm, thinly leathery to papery, abaxially pale green and sparsely appressed pubescent when young or pubescent only along midvein, adaxially dark green and hirtellous along midvein, secondary veins 7-9 on each side of midvein and raised on both surfaces, base broadly cuneate, margin serrulate, apex caudate to long caudate. Flowers axillary, solitary. Pedicel 7-10 mm, elongating to 1.5 cm in fruit, slender; bracteoles 5 or 6, broadly ovate, 1-1.5 mm, outside puberulent, margin ciliolate, apex acute. Calyx shallowly cupular, ca. 4 mm; lobes 5, broadly ovate to suborbicular, 3-3.5 mm, outside puberulent, inside glabrous, margin ciliolate. Petals 5 or 6, white, obovate to obovate-elliptic, 10-13 × 6-8 mm, outside farinose-puberulent, basally connate for ca. 2 mm. Stamens 8-9 mm; outer filament whorl basally connate for ca. 4 mm, distinct part white villous. Ovary white tomentose, 3-loculed; style densely white pubescent, apically 3-parted. Capsule globose, 1.5-2 cm in diam., 1-loculed with 1 seed, apex apiculate; peri-carp thinly leathery, ca. 1 mm thick. Seed brown, globose, ca. 1.5 cm in diam. Fl. Nov, fr. Sep.

● Mixed forests; 100-200 m. Yunnan (Malipo).