全缘叶山茶 quan yuan ye shan cha

Camellia lienshanensis Hung T. Chang.

Shrubs or trees, 3-8 m tall. Young branches grayish white; current year branchlets reddish brown, glabrous. Petiole 1-1.8 cm, glabrous; leaf blade oblong-elliptic, obovate-oblong, or lanceolate, 5-10.5(-12) × 2-3.5 cm, leathery, abaxially pale green or glaucescent, adaxially dark green, shiny, and becoming yellowish green when dry, both surfaces glabrous, midvein thick and raised on both surfaces, secondary veins 6 or 7 on each side of midvein and visible on both surfaces or abaxially obscure, base cuneate, margin entire or sparsely denticulate near apex, apex acuminate. Flowers axillary or subterminal, solitary, 5-8 cm in diam., subsessile. Bracteoles and sepals ca. 10, leathery; outer 4 or 5 bracteoles and sepals lunate to semiorbicular, 1.5-7 mm; inner bracteoles and sepals orbicular to obovate, sepaloid, 1-2 cm, outside densely pubescent, inside sericeous. Petals 5-7, roseate, obovate, 3.5-5.7 cm, apex emarginate; inner 5 petals basally connate for ca. 5 mm. Stamens ca. 2.8 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for ca. 3.5 mm. Ovary globose, glabrous, 3(or 4)-loculed; style ca. 2.6 cm, glabrous, apically 3-5-lobed. Capsule ovoid, 3-6 × 3-6 cm, 3(or 4)-loculed with 1-3 seeds per locule; pericarp yellowish green to brown, ca. 4 mm thick when dry, splitting into 3 or 4 valves. Seeds brown, globose to semiglobose, ca. 2 cm in diam., glabrous. Fl. Nov-Dec, fr. Sep.

● Forests; 700-1100 m. NW Guangdong, S Hunan, W Jiangxi.