小瘤国茶 xiao liu guo cha

Shrubs 1.5-3 m tall. Young branches grayish brown; current year branchlets glabrous or densely yellowish pubescent with indumentum ± persistent to following year. Petiole 3-5 mm, pubescent; leaf blade ovate, long ovate, elliptic-ovate, or lanceolate, 4-8 × 1.5-2.5 cm, leathery, abaxially pale green or brown, sparsely pilose along midvein, and turning brown when dry, adaxially dark green and hirtellous along midvein, midvein raised on both surfaces, secondary veins 6 or 7 on each side of midvein, base broadly cuneate to rounded, margin serrulate, apex acuminate to caudate-acuminate. Flowers axillary or subterminal, solitary or paired, ca. 3 cm in diam., subsessile. Bracteoles 5 or 6, caducous, semiorbicular to suborbicular, 2-10 mm, outside pale yellow sericeous, inside glabrous, margin
ciliolate. Sepals 5, caducous, broadly ovate to suborbicular, 0.7-1.5 cm, crustaceous, outside pale yellow sericeous, inside glabrous, margin scarious and ciliolate. Petals 7, white, obovate, 2-2.5 cm, basally connate for ca. 5 mm, apex emarginate. Stamens ca. 1.5 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for ca. 1 cm. Ovary glabrous, 3(or 4)-loculed; styles 3(or 4), distinct, ca. 1.5 cm, glabrous. Capsule subglobose, ca. 1.5 cm in diam., 1- or 2-loculed with 1 seed per locule, apex sunken; pericarp tuberculate. Seeds brown, globose, ca. 1 cm in diam., sparsely yellow pilose. Fl. Dec-Feb, fr. Sep.

● Forests, thickets; 500-1100 m. Chongqing, NE Guizhou, W Hubei, SW Hunan.