防城茶 fang cheng cha

Shrubs or trees, 3-5 m tall. Young branches grayish brown, glabrous; current year branchlets purplish brown, thick, terete, yellowish brown villous; terminal buds sericeous. Petiole 5-8 mm, yellow pubescent, adaxially grooved; leaf blade elliptic to oblong-elliptic, 13-29 × 5.5-12.5 cm, leathery to thinly leathery, abaxially pale green, densely pubescent, and becoming grayish green to grayish brown when dry, adaxially dark green, glabrous, and becoming yellowish green when dry, midvein abaxially elevated and adaxially impressed, secondary veins 10-12 on each side of midvein and raised on both surfaces, base broadly cuneate to rounded, margin serrulate, apex shortly acuminate to acute and with a blunt tip. Flowers axillary, solitary or paired, 2-3 cm in diam. Pedicel 5-10 mm, recurved, yellow pubescent; bracteoles 2, caducous. Sepals 5, persistent, suborbicular, 3-3.5 × 2-3 mm, outside grayish brown sericeous, inside glabrous, margin ciliolate. Petals 5-7, white, suborbicular, 1-1.5 × 0.7-1 cm, basally slightly connate, apex rounded; outer 2 or 3 petals sepaloid, outside sericeous. Stamens numerous, ca. 1 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally slightly connate. Ovary globose, 2-3 mm in diam., pale yellow tomentose, 3-loculed; style ca. 8 mm, glabrous or basally pubescent, apically 3-lobed. Capsule 3-coccal oblate, ca. 1.5 × 2-3 cm, 3-loculed with usually l seed per locule; pericarp ca. 1 mm thick, splitting into 3 valves. Seeds yellowish brown, subglobose, ca. 1.5 cm in diam. Fl. Nov-Dec, fr. Sep-Oct.

● Forests on lower hills or in valleys; 200-400 m. Guangxi (Fangcheng).