毛蕊山茶 mao rui shan cha

Shrubs or trees, 2-8 m tall. Young branches grayish brown; year-old branchlets with pubescence becoming black and glabrescent; current year branchlets reddish brown, sparsely gray pubescent to subglabrous or yellowish villous. Petiole ca. 1 cm, pubescent or glabrescent; leaf blade elliptic, oblong-elliptic, or oblong-lanceolate, 6-15 × 2.5-6 cm, leathery, abaxially pale green, sparsely appressed villous when young or later glabrescent except densely villous along midvein, and becoming reddish brown when dry, adaxially dark green and glabrous, midvein abaxially elevated and adaxially slightly raised, secondary veins 6-8 on each side of midvein, abaxially raised, and adaxially strongly impressed, base cuneate, broadly cuneate, or obtuse, margin densely apiculate-serrulate, apex acuminate to long caudate. Flowers axillary or subterminal, solitary or paired, 4-6 cm in diam., subsessile. Bracteoles and sepals 8-10, caducous after anthesis, leathery, both surfaces grayish yellow velutinous or inside glabrous, margin membranous; outer 2-4 bracteoles and sepals semiorbicular, 2-6 mm; inner bracteoles and sepals orbicular to broadly obovate, 1-1.5 cm. Petals 7-9, dark red; outer petals 2-4, nearly distinct, orbicular to broadly obovate, 3-3.5 cm, both surfaces white farinose-velutinous; inner 5 petals broadly obovate to ovate, 4-5 cm, glabrous, basally connate for ca. 1 cm, apex emarginate. Stamens ca. 3 cm; filaments villous, slightly pilose, or glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for ca. 2 cm. Ovary globose, ca. 2 mm in diam., yellow tomentose, 3-loculed; style ca. 2.5 cm, yellow velutinous, apically 3-lobed. Capsule ovoid with a mucronate apex, 4-5.5 cm in diam., 3-loculed with 2 seeds per locule; pericarp to 1 cm thick and fleshy when fresh but ca. 5 mm and stiffly leathery when dry. Seeds brown, semiorbicular, 1.5-2 cm in diam., glabrous. Fl. Dec-Feb, fr. Sep-Oct.

● Forests, thickets; 400-1800(-2900) m. NW Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, S Hunan, S Sichuan, Yunnan.