毛叶茶 mao ye cha

Camellia pubescens Hung T. Chang & C. X. Ye.

Shrubs or trees, to 6 m tall. Year-old branchlets straw colored, glabrous; current year branchlets densely grayish yellow pubescent. Petiole 8-10 mm, densely pubescent; leaf blade oblong, (9-)12-21 × (3-)4-6 cm, leathery, abaxially pale green, appressed pubescent but densely villous along midvein, and becoming grayish brown when dry, adaxially dark green, glabrous, and becoming dull when dry, midvein abaxially elevated and adaxially flat, secondary veins 8-10 on each side of midvein and visible to slightly raised on both surfaces, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, margin serrulate, apex acuminate. Flowers axillary or subterminal, solitary, 2.5-3 cm in diam. Pedicel 5-7 mm, densely grayish yellow pubescent; bracteoles 3, caducous. Sepals 5 or 6, persistent, broadly ovate to suborbicular, 5-6 mm, outside grayish yellow sericeous, inside glabrous. Petals 5(-8), white, broadly obovate, 1.5-1.8 cm, basally slightly connate. Stamens ca. 1 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for ca. 2 mm. Ovary densely grayish yellow pubescent, 3-loculed; style ca. 1 cm, glabrous or basally pubescent, apically 3-lobed. Capsule globose or 3-coccal oblate, ca. 1.5 × 2 cm, 1-3-loculed with 1 or 2 seeds per locule; pericarp ca. 1 mm thick, splitting into 3 valves. Seeds brown, hemispherical or globose, ca. 1.5 cm in diam. Fl. Dec, fr. Sep-Oct.

● Forests; 200-500 m. N Guangdong, S Hunan.