淡黄金花茶 dan huang jin hua cha

Shrubs 1-3.5 m tall. Young branches grayish brown; current year branchlets purplish red, glabrous. Petiole 3-10 mm, glabrous, adaxially grooved; leaf blade elliptic to oblong-elliptic, 8-16(-17.5) × 3-6.5 cm, thinly leathery, abaxially pale green, brown glandular punctate, and becoming pale brown when dry, adaxially dark green, both surfaces glabrous, midvein abaxially elevated and adaxially impressed, secondary veins 7-9 on each side of midvein, abaxially raised, and adaxially slightly impressed, reticulate veins abaxially slightly raised and adaxially visible, base cuneate to obtuse, margin serrulate, apex acuminate to shortly caudate. Flowers axillary, solitary. Pedicel 3-5 mm; bracteoles 5 or 6, ± covering pedicel, semiorbicular to ovate, 1.5-2.5 × 2-3.5 mm, outside glabrous, inside white puberulent, margin ciliolate. Sepals 5, 3.5-5 × 4.5-6 mm, outside glabrous, inside white puberulent, margin ciliolate. Petals 7-13, pale yellow, rarely purplish in bud, obovate to obovate-elliptic, 1.2-2.5 × 0.9-1.5 cm; inner petals basally connate for ca. 2 mm. Stamens 1-1.5 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for 3-5 mm. Ovary globose, ca. 1.5 mm in diam., glabrous, (2 or)3(-5)-loculed; styles 3, distinct, 1-1.3 cm. Capsule oblate, 2.5-3.5 cm in diam., (2 or)3(-5)-loculed with 1 or 2 seeds per locule; pericarp ca. 1 mm thick. Seeds brown, globose or hemispherical, 1-1.5 cm in diam., reddish brown villous. Fl. Nov-Jan, fr. Sep-Oct. 2n = 30*.

● Evergreen broad-leaved forests on calcareous hills; 100-500 m. S and SW Guangxi.