广西茶 guang xi cha

Shrubs or trees, 3-6 m tall. Young branches pale brown, glabrous; current year branchlets purplish brown, gray pubescent; terminal buds white sericeous. Petiole purplish brown, 0.8-1.2 cm, glabrous, abaxially grooved; leaf blade oblong-elliptic to oblong, 8-12(-17) × 3-5(-7) cm, leathery, abaxially pale green, sparsely pubescent or glabrescent, and becoming pale brown when dry, adaxially dark green and becoming grayish brown when dry, shiny, and glabrous, midvein abaxially elevated and adaxially slightly raised, secondary veins 9-11 on each side of midvein and raised on both surfaces, base broadly cuneate, margin sharply serrulate, apex acuminate to shortly acuminate. Flowers axillary or subterminal, solitary or paired. Pedicel 7-10 mm, thickened toward apex, glabrous; bracteoles 2, caducous. Sepals 5, persistent, broadly ovate to suborbicular, 7-10 mm, leathery, outside glabrous or farinose-puberulent, inside white sericeous, margin membranous. Petals 8-10, white, broadly obovate, 2-2.5 cm, outside glabrous or farinose-puberulent, basally connate. Stamens 1.1-1.8 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl connate for basal 1/3. Ovary globose, glabrous, 5-loculed; style ca. 1.8 cm, apically 5-parted for ca. 6 mm. Capsule globose, ca. 4 cm in diam., 5-loculed with 2 seeds per locule; pericarp 5-6 mm thick when dry. Seeds brown, hemispherical, ca. 1.5 cm in diam. Fl. Nov-Dec, fr. Sep-Oct.

● Evergreen broad-leaved forests, mixed forests; 1500-1900 m. W Guangxi, SE Yunnan.